Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 May 1890 — How Some Brave Men Died. [ARTICLE]

How Some Brave Men Died.

It was at the battle of Mobile Bay, Aug. 5, 1864, that Admiral Farragut was lashed to the main yard, up tc which he had climbed in order to be above the smoke and so bo able to oversee the operations of the fleet. All the world has heard of the Admiral’s courage, but comparatively few will, perhaps, so much as i*emember the name of a man who, in this same battle, performed a deed of still nobler heroism, says the Youth's Companion. Dr. Hutchinson, in his account of the battle says that the Confederate ram Tennessee started out from behind Fort Morgan just before the head of tin Federal fleet was abreast of it, intending to attack the ships one by one. On receiving two or three broadsides, however, she changed her course and ran back, closely followed by the Federal monitor Tecumseh. As the Tecumseb neared the fort, pounding away at the ram with fifteen-inch solid shot, she she struck a floating torpedo and exploded it. As was afterward ascertained by the divers, the explosion tore a hole in ker bottom more than 20 feet square, and she sank like a stone, turning over as she went down in eight fathoms of water; By this frightful disaster U 0 out of 120 men were lost in a smgji instant. Commander Tunis A. M. Craven, one of the most gallant officers in the service, lost his life through his noble disregard of self. Ho was in the pilot house with the pilot, close to the only opening in the whole ship, and this only large enough to allow one man to pass at once. Capt. Craven was already partly out when the pilot grasped him by the leg and cried, “Let me get out first, Captain, for God’s sake! I have five little children!” The Captain drew baek, saying, “Go on, sir,” and went down with the ship* while the pilot was saved. A week afterward, when the divers examined the wreck, they found nearly all the crew at their posts, just as they had sunk. The chief engineer, who had been married in New York only two weeks before, and who had received from the flagship's mail his letters as the line was forming, stood with one hand upon the revolving bai of the turret engine, while the other held an open letter from his bride, which his dead eyes still seemed to b« reading.