Identifier: pictureofdesolat00trow (find matches)
Title: A picture of the desolated states; and the work of restoration. 1865-1868
Year: 1868 (1860s)
Authors: Trowbridge, J. T. (John Townsend), 1827-1916
Subjects: Grant, Ulysses S. (Ulysses Simpson), 1822-1885 Colfax, Schuyler, 1823-1885 Reconstruction (U.S. history, 1865-1877) Southern States -- Description and travel United States -- History Civil War, 1861-1865 Anecdotes
Publisher: Hartford, Conn., L. Stebbins
Contributing Library: New York Public Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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a Bay and sev-eral miles of the coast of Mobile Bay. This work, originallybuilt by De Soto more than three centuries ago, was finallyinvested by our fleet and land forces on the day of the fall ofRichmond. It surrendered on the ninth of April, and on theeleventh Mobile was evacuated. The water approaches to•this fort, and to the other defences of the city, were strewnwith torpedoes, by which four or five vessels of our fleet wereblown up. We passed a line of obstructions, consisting of piles andsunken wrecks thrown across the channel; and Mobile, asmoking, sunlit city, lay before us on the low shore. By thedirect channel it was less than three miles distant; but, inorder to reach it, we were compelled to ascend Spanisli Riverto tlie Mobile River, and descend that stream, a circuit of overtwenty miles. It was four oclock when we reached the wharf. Mobile is a level, shady town, regularly laid out, andt)uilt on a dry, sandy plain. It is the principal city of Ala- o I—I o O W>—(
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iWii!ii!iis;iiiiii!iiiii;!ai:iiiMi:!!!PlMl« THE TERRIBLE EXPLOSION AT MOBILE. 421 bama, and the second city in importance in the Gulf States ;its commerce rankino; next to that of New Orleans. For sev-eral years before the war its annual exports of cotton werebetween six and seven hundred thousand bales. It endured afour years blockade, falling into Federal hands only at thelatter end of the war. But its great catastrophe did not occur until some time afterthe termination of hostilities. It would seem as if the geniusof Destruction was determined to strike a final blow at thecity. The explosion of the lately captured Confederate ammu-nition was one of the most terrible disasters of the kind everknown. It was stored in a large three-story warehouse onestreet back from the river. The last of Dick Tavlors shellswere going in, when, it is supposed, one of them accidentallyignited. Twenty brick blocks, and portions of other blocks,X were instantly blown to atoms. Four or five hundred pers

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