Lincoln's Admiral: The Civil War Campaigns of David Farragut

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Damn the torpedoes. . . . Full speed ahead."Admiral David Farragut's bold order at the Battle of Mobile Bay has served as a rallying cry for the United States Navy for a century.Described as "urbane" and "indomitable" by contemporaries, and lionized as an "American Viking" by the Northern press during the Civil War, Farragut was considered gallant, brilliant, and humane by friend and foe alike.Recently discovered primary source material sheds new light on Farragut's life and times.The first full admiral in American naval history, he was small in stature and almost sixty years old at the outbreak of the Civil War.Yet Farragut possessed enormous courage and stamina.He led by example and became an inspiration to the entire nation.At the start of the Civil War, many thought Farragut— a southerner by birth— would join the Confederate cause.But he had spent almost five decades serving aboard ships that flew the American flag.His unwavering loyalty to the Northern cause was founded in the belief that the South's secession was a first, fatal step toward national collapse.Thoroughly researched and compellingly written, Lincoln's Admiral examines Farragut's command of the most daring and important assignment of the Civil War: the mission to recapture the vital Southern port of New Orleans.With meticulous detail, Duffy deftly retraces the steps that led up to that critical campaign.New Orleans's defenses against attackfrom the Gulf were formidable.In the dead of night, Farragut ordered men to board rebel barrier ships stationed in the river and plant explosives."In the rigging of his flagship, the Hartford, high above the mantle of smoke, stood sixty-three-year-old RearAdmiral David Farragut.It was the only location aboard ship that afforded a panorama of the battle.He held a spyglass firmly in one hand, and a megaphone in the other.Bound securely to the mast, Farragut deftly directed the action of his fleet in what would be one of th