A consideration of this fight shows that the Union forces had their blood up, and that nothing but an impregnable ship could have withstood this onslaught. The _Tennessee_ was not that kind of a ship. The defects in the shutters and the steering gear, and the inability to keep up the fires after the smoke-stack fell, ruined her chances. These matters must be emphasized because such defects are inevitable in ships built during actual war. The Confederacy lacked ships just as the United States would lack them in case a war with a first-class nation were suddenly precipitated upon us, and the ships we should then build would very likely fail, as the _Tennessee_ failed. It is worth noting that not one shot penetrated the _Tennessee’s_ casemate, but one from the _Manhattan_ bulged the wood backing of the armor into a mass of splinters. The _Tennessee_ lost two killed and ten wounded. The Union forces lost fifty-two killed by shots, 120 drowned in the _Tecumseh_, and 170 wounded. The _Chickasaw_ shelled Fort Gaines on the 6th, and it surrendered next day. The fort on the other point was invested by the troops as well as the ships, the shelling beginning on the 22d of August, and the next day it surrendered. This effectually closed Mobile harbor as a port for blockade-runners, but the city was not taken until the middle of the next spring. The naval forces helped in bombarding the defences about the city, but the only incidents of real importance to history of this kind were the various losses from torpedoes. The bay was swept for torpedoes thoroughly, and yet the _Milwaukee_ ran on one on returning from a trip up to shell a fort near the city, and was sunk. The _Osage_, in shifting her anchorage in a fresh breeze, was sunk in like fashion. The wrecking steamer _Rodolph_, while going to raise the _Milwaukee_, struck another and went down. Even after the Confederate troops withdrew and 150 torpedoes had been removed from the Tombigbee channel, two tugs and a launch struck torpedoes and were destroyed. The danger from such obstructions had never been so well shown as at Mobile. CHAPTER XIV TALES OF THE CONFEDERATE CRUISERS THE MOST INSTRUCTIVE CHAPTER IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES--WORK ACCOMPLISHED BY AN ENERGETIC SEAMAN IN A SHIP HIS BROTHER OFFICERS CONDEMNED--BRILLIANT WORK OF THE _FLORIDA_ UNDER JOHN NEWLAND MAFFIT--BAD MARKSMANSHIP AND A WORSE LOOKOUT OFF MOBILE--A CASE OF VIOLATED NEUTRALITY--SEMMES AND THE _ALABAMA_--THE BATTLE WITH THE _KEARSARGE_--WHAT KIND OF A MAN IS IT THAT FIGHTS HIS SHIP TILL SHE SINKS UNDER HIM?--AMERICAN COMMERCE DESTROYED--THE BRITISH WITHOUT A RIVAL ON THE SEA, AT LAST, AND AT VERY SMALL COST.