Celebrations Today – August 23
Holidays and observances
- Battle of Kursk Day (Russia)
- Christian feast day:
- Day of the National Flag (Ukraine)
- European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism or Black Ribbon Day (European Union and other countries), and related observances:
- International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition
- National Day for Physicians (Iran)
- Umhlanga Day (Swaziland)
Celebrations Today – USA: August 23
National Ride The Wind Day
National Sponge Cake Day
National Buttered Corn Day
National European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism
National Hug Your Sweetheart Day
International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition
National Spongecake Day
National Valentino Day
Today in US History: August 23
Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!
Rear Admiral David G. Farragut,
Brady National Photographic Art Gallery,
between 1860 and 1865.
Selected Civil War Photographs
Farragut’s Flagship Hartford,
c1905.
Touring Turn-of-the-Century America: Photographs from the Detroit Publishing Company, 1880-1920
On August 23, 1864, the Union navy captured Fort Morgan, Alabama, breaking the Confederate dominance of the ports of the Gulf of Mexico. As the Union fleet of four ironclad and fourteen wooden ships sailed into the channel on August 5, one of the lead ships, the Tecumseh, hit a mine, at the time known as a “torpedo.”
In reply to the warning, “Torpedoes ahead!” given by the forward ships, commander Admiral David Farragut called out, “Damn the torpedoes!” and, taking the lead with his flagship the Hartford, sailed over the double row of mines and into Mobile Bay.
H. H. Lloyd & Co’s. Campaign Military Charts Showing the Principal Strategic Places of Interest,
Egbert L.Viele and Charles Haskins, military and civil engineers,
c1861.
Military Battles and Campaigns in Map Collections
The Union army used this chart, which includes sixteen maps of strategic areas of the United States. Use the zoom feature for a closer view of the section showing the Mobile Bay area and its forts.
Although the bottom of the ship scraped the mines, none exploded, and the rest of the fleet followed Farragut’s flagship to victory in the engagement with the Confederate flotilla. During the next weeks, the Union Navy consolidated its hold on the bay by dispersing and capturing Southern ships and tightening the blockade. With the surrender of Fort Morgan, the Union was able to cut the South off from its overseas supply routes.
A Southerner who lived through the Civil War remembered the effects of the Union’s coastline blockade:
…we had to get our cotton to Brownsville during the war and send it through Mexico to the markets in Europe…. One could see, the long wagon trains of cotton…as they slowly mended their way to the Mexican border…the Texas ports were blockaded and all the time enemies were on the watch to confiscate produce of any kind, and especially cotton…“Mr. Edwin Punchard,”
Siesel, Texas,
Miss Effie Cowan, interviewer, circa 1936-40.
American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936-1940
Others recounted tales of the privations caused by the blockade and the makeshifts necessitated by them:
We scraped the salt from the floor of the old smoke houses that were used in the days before the war when all those things were so plentiful.“Sarah Ann Poss Pringle,”
Marlin, Texas,
Miss Effie Cowan, interviewer, circa 1936-40.
American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936-1940
Mrs. Ida Baker explained:
Everybody had to use parched wheat, parched okra seed or parched raw sweet potato chips for coffee. Not even tea came in. We used sassafras and other native herb teas both daily and at parties when the herb teas were in season. Some were good, but the substitute coffee was not.“At Christmas Times,”
Spartanburg, South Carolina,
Caldwell Sims, interviewer, January 12, 1938.
American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936-1940
For more information in American Memory related to the U.S. Civil War:
- Search on blockade and Confederacy in American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936-1940 for more accounts of Southerners’ experiences during the Civil War.
- To learn about Confederate ships, Liberian-bound emigrants, and canal travel search on the term ship or boat in Southern Voices. Comprised of diaries, autobiographies, memoirs, travel accounts, and ex-slave narratives, Southern Voices consists of two collections from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill:
- Visit the collections Civil War Maps and Selected Civil War Photographs to view a wealth of primary source material illustrating the war. In the former collection, see, for example, a Chart Showing the Entrance of Rear Admiral Farragut into Mobile Bay. In the latter see, for example, a portrait of Commander Matthew F. Maury, C.S.N., the “Father of Oceanography.”
- Search the Today in History Archives on Civil War to find features about the First Battle of Bull Run, the three-day Battle of Gettysburg (July 1, July 2, and July 3, 1863), Lee’s surrender to Grant, and many other events of the Civil War.
- View Rear Admiral David Farragut’s photograph and his signature on his carte de visite in the Civil War Photograph Album, circa 1861-65 contained in the collection Words and Deeds in American History: Selected Documents Celebrating the Manuscript Division’s First 100 Years. The album, probably compiled by President Lincoln’s secretary, John Hays, contains two hundred of these photographic calling cards.
- Search on the keyword ironclad in Words and Deeds in American History to see and learn more about Watercolors of Civil War Ironclads painted by Ens. D. M. N. Stouffer, circa 1864-65.
- Read a nineteenth-century song about Farragut’s battle, “Farragut’s Ball, a Parody on Lanigan’s Ball,” an undated sheet of lyrics found in the collection America Singing: Nineteenth-Century Song Sheets. The lyrics of the first verse are reproduced below. The tune meant to accompany them was a popular melody of the period, “Lanigan’s Ball; The Popular Irish Song,” (1863), available in Historic American Sheet Music, 1850-1920.
On the blockade was one Admiral Farragut,
Who was noted for being a very brave man;
Who never was known to be scarified, ne’er a bit,
And his vessels in all kinds of ructions he ran.
He gave a large party one day to his squadron,
Officers and men he invited them all;
And if you’ll pay attention, I’ll just try to mention,
The row and the ructions at Farragut’s ball.”Farragut’s Ball, a Parody on Lanigan’s Ball,”
R. H. Singleton, Bookseller; Nashville, Tennessee,
America Singing: Nineteenth-Century Song Sheets
Today in History – August 23-External Links
Today’s Weather in History
Today in Earthquake History
This Day in Naval History
Today’s Document from the National Archives
Today’s Events, Births & Deaths –Wikipedia
Today in History by AP
On this Day -1950 to 2005 – Today’s Story–BBC
On This Day: The New York Times
This Day in History –History.com
Today in Canadian History – Canada Channel
History of Britain that took place On This Day
Russia in History –Russiapedia