AUGUST 23RD, 1864: Having doggedly withstood naval bombardment as well as a land siege for two weeks, Brigadier General Page surrendered Fort Morgan, the last Confederate bastion in lower Mobile Bay.
"My guns and powder had all been destroyed, my means of defense gone, the citadel, nearly all the quartermaster stores and a portion of the commissariat burned by the enemy's shells," he reported.
"It was evident the fort could hold out but a few hours longer under a renewed bombardment. The only question was: Hold it for this time, gain the eclat, and sustain the loss of life from the falling of the walls, or save life and capitulate?"
And, sadly, one of the ships mercilessly pounding Fort Morgan was a former defender of it5, the CSS, now USS, Tennessee.
--A Valiant Fight. --Old B-Runner
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