Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/764

712 not secede, he asked that he might recall the same, which was refused. He entered the Confederate navy September 5, 1861, as a captain, and was first assigned to duty as chief of orders and details. Early in 1861 he was ordered to the command of the new iron-clad Virginia, for which he organized a crew, and prepared for the historic action in Hampton Roads. Going down the harbor March 8th, in the untried and unwieldy monster, he called all the hands to muster, and pointing to the Union fleet said: &quot;Those ships must be taken, and you shall not complain that I do not take you close enough. Go to your guns!&quot; In the action which followed he was seriously wounded, but fortunately not until the Congress had been captured and the Cumberland sunk, demonstrating the fighting qualities of his ship, under his skillful command. Congress being in session at the time, he was thanked by resolution and a bill was soon passed creating the grade of admiral in the navy, to which Buchanan was nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate, August 21, 1862. Later in that year he was assigned to the important post of commander of the naval force at Mobile. The operations of the Federal fleet against that port began in January, 1864, and from that date he was busily engaged in co-operation with Gen. Dabney H. Maury in devising means to hold this stronghold, struggling against a pitiful deficiency of everything but the valor of the men at their command. He had previously built and equipped the ram Tennessee, a powerful iron-clad resembling the Virginia in general appearance. In command of this vessel and three gunboats, in all twenty-two guns, he engaged with characteristic intrepidity the Federal fleet commanded by Farragut, consisting of four monitors and fourteen other warships, and mounting 159 guns and 33 howitzers, during and after their passage of the forts into Mobile Bay, August 5, 1864. After his leg was broken by an iron splinter and the ram was disabled by the concentrated fire of the