The rebel navy had practically ceased to exist some months before. The
splendid fight in Mobile Bay on August 5, 1864, between Farragut's fleet
and the rebel ram _Tennessee_, with her three attendant gunboats, and
Cushing's daring destruction of the powerful _Albemarle_ in Albemarle
Sound on October 27, marked its end in Confederate waters. The duel
between the _Kearsarge_ and the _Alabama_ off Cherbourg had already
taken place; a few more encounters, at or near foreign ports, furnished
occasion for personal bravery and subsequent lively diplomatic
correspondence; and rebel vessels, fitted out under the unduly lenient
"neutrality" of France and England, continued for a time to work havoc
with American shipping in various parts of the world. But these two
Union successes, and the final capture of Fort Fisher and of Wilmington
early in 1865, which closed the last haven for daring blockade-runners,
practically silenced the Confederate navy.
General E. Kirby Smith commanded all the insurgent forces west of the
Mississippi. On him the desperate hopes of Mr. Davis and his flying
cabinet were fixed, after the successive surrenders of Lee and Johnston
had left them no prospect in the east. They imagined they could move
westward, gathering up stragglers as they fled, and, crossing the river,
join Smith's forces, and there continue the war.
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