Battle of Mobile Bay: Esbon C. Lambert’s Civil War Diary
A Civil War Diary: Life in 1863–1864 for A Union Sailor on the Gunboat USS Itasca During the Battle of Mobile Bay
“We all have laurels on our brows about a foot deep,” proclaimed United States Navy Landsman Esbon C. Lambert shortly after the fateful Battle of Mobile Bay. Here, from 1863–1864, Lambert’s Civil War diary records life and events on board the steam gunboat, USS Itasca and covers almost the entire one-year term of Lambert’s second enlistment.
The handwritten diary describes the ship’s operations during the blockade of Mobile, Alabama on the Gulf of Mexico, the Battle of Mobile Bay, and its subsequent service off the coast of Texas.
Esbon (incorrectly seen in some sources as “Ezbon” and sometimes as “E. C.”) was the son of William C. Lambert and Margaret Boone Sutton. Esbon married Emma Jane Garton February 15, 1867. By the 1880s, Lambert was living in Cumberland County, New Jersey, selling hardware and cutlery.
Before his second Civil War enlistment, a naval enlistment that time, Lambert and his brother, William S. Lambert, had served as musicians in the band of the Third New Jersey Regiment Infantry Volunteers from June 1861 to August 1862. When the band was abolished, the brothers were mustered out at Harrison’s Landing, Virginia.
Beginning in 1861, before Esbon C. Lambert joined the crew, the gunboat Itasca was assigned to enforce the naval blockade of the Confederate coast on the Gulf of Mexico.
In late 1863, when Lambert joined the crew at Philadelphia, where the ship had put in for repairs, the Itasca was under the command of Lieutenant Commander George Brown and attached to the West Gulf Blockading Squadron led by Rear-Admiral David G. Farragut, who is mentioned in the diary several times.
The main duty of the Itasca and the other ships in the blockading squadron was to prevent Confederate ships and other Rebel vessels from leaving or entering Confederate ports, thus interrupting their commerce and their receiving of goods and supplies.
The blockade was vigilant, but not always successful. The diary entry for January 13, 1864 notes: “A large steamer is reported to have run out last night with 800 bales of cotton.”
A typical day on the Itasca, whose duties were mostly off the coast of Alabama and Mobile Bay and out of rebel cannon and gun range, involved steaming out in the evening to keep a “station” all night while at anchor and then moving the ship the next day to a different position or station.
Many of the other ships in the blockading squadron mentioned by Lambert in the diary would later participate in the key Union victory at the Battle of Mobile Bay.
In the months leading up to the battle, the diary notes both Union and Confederate forces preparing for the assault on Mobile, for example: “Discovered the Rebels in force to the Eastward building a battery. signalized to the ‘[U. S. S.] Oneida’ the [U. S. S.] Pinola & [U. S. S.] Pembina. shelled the Rebs to day.” (April 20, 1864)
In the course of six diary entries, July 1–July 6, 1864, Lambert describes how a blockade running steamship that had run aground within gun range of Confederate Fort Morgan (which can be identified as the ship Ivanhoe) was destroyed under cover of darkness in a risky effort by Union naval forces.
The desperation of the blockade-runner and the daring counter-attack by the Union Navy show that the stakes were high and that the inevitable battle was coming nearer.
At 10 o’clock in the evening of August 4, 1864 “…all hands went below [deck] for rest…most on the gun deck singing all night.” Lambert’s next diary entry begins:
All Hands called at 2 a. m. I was then instructed to get everything ready for the Battle, distribute tourniquets to the officer[s] and men, but a short time elapsed and my department was in good order and was approved of by our Captain and Surgeon & officers. At 3 a.m. we hove up anchor and ran along side the [U. S. S.] Ossipee and all the ships fell in line 14 in number [Lambert lists the 14 ships including the Itasca] … The iron clads took the lead. Weather in our favor. Most all the vessels soon ran up 3 or 4 big flags and then the firing commenced and soon became most terrific. Our consort was struck several times and had a number killed & wounded at the commencement. At 8.16 a.m. we had passed the forts [Confederate-held Fort Gaines & Fort Morgan]. Early in the Battle we had the witness[ed] the sinking of the [U. S. S.] Tecumseh by a torpedo with all hand[s] on board. Soon after we had passed the the Batteries where the fleet had assembled near fort gaines [sic] the [ironclad C. S. S.] Tennessee (Ram) came out to attack the whole fleet which she did in good style, but was soon defeated and captured with all her crew. (August 5, 1864)
This entry about the Battle of Mobile Bay, made on the very day of the battle, ends two-thirds of the way down the page; the remainder of the page was left blank.
It had not been Lambert’s style, up to this point, to leave so many lines blank on a page before the next entry. The following three leaves in the diary have been removed. There then follows a single leaf that appears to have been left blank by Lambert, but which has been scribbled upon in pencil on both sides, likely by a later owner. Immediately following this, one more leaf lacking. The rest of the diary is intact.
Perhaps Lambert left that one leaf and the missing leaves blank so he could later fully report on the events of the battle. It is known, for example, that Lambert’s ship, the Itasca, had engaged and captured the Confederate gunboat C. S. S. Selma in the battle that day, but its capture is not described in the diary.
When the diary begins again on September 1, 1864, Lambert is still on board the Itasca and is setting out for blockade duties off the coast of Texas.
Happily, a four-page letter from Lambert, dated August 18, 1864, is laid into the diary and helps fill the apparent gap in the narrative. Writing on board the Itasca in Mobile Bay on August 18, 1864, Lambert sent a letter to Baltimore addressed to his future father-in-law, Captain Joseph Garton of the U. S. S. Transport Kennebec:
Your letter of July 29 has just arrived & has been read with interest. long e’re this you have heard of our Grand Naval Victory. that of passing Fort Morgan, the capture of ft Gaines & [Fort] Powell, Captain of the famous Rebel iron clad Tennessee, and “Gunboat Selma,” destruction of Gunboat “Gaines,” with the capture of numerous craft of all description…Our loss in killed & wounded is about 400 as near as I can learn. The Monitor Tecumseh was struck by one of the 700 torpedoes and went down with all except some who were saved by the [U. S. S.] Metacomet’s boat which was lowered in the heat of the Battle. The Phillipi, a small tug [boat], was also destroyed outside by a fire after the fight…The Ram T[ennessee] attacked our iron clads at 9 ½ o’clock A.M. (5th) the fight of the iron clads lasted about half an hour. the whole fight lasted two hours & 35 minutes. which was certainly a grand affair. immediately after things were quieted down, the Metacomet Kennebec & us (Itasca) was ordered up the Bay to see what we could see & soon returned without seeing anything but a small sloop which we took in tow after a terrible fight “A-la-Alabama” [a reference to the C. S. S. Alabama, whose sinking is noted in the diary on July 13] &c. we have since been up to Mobile City but did not go ashore. cause why the Rebels had the channel filled up with Gunboats & Batteries behind the obstructions…We are now lying very quiet in this Bay waiting for [Fort] “Morgan” to cave. The Fort is surrounded entirely. Mortars are playing feebly on and around the [indistinct] place. the Bombardment is to commence in a few days. each vessel sends men to man the Batteries. I have just seen an account of this Battle in a N[ew]. Y[ork]. Herald the Corospdants [Correspondents] of that paper must all have been Gloriously Drunk or Mortally frightened or they would not have told so many outlandish lies. Allow me to say that what is in this letter stated is truth so you can rely on it. I was stationed at the Signal halliards [halyards] during the first part of the fight and around decks where I could see best, the Remaining part…We all have “Laurels on our Brows” about a foot Deep.
Lambert’s pride in having participated in the battle is further demonstrated by his copying out, at the conclusion of the diary, the full text of Admiral Farragut’s “General Order No. 12” of August 6, 1864 congratulating the officers and crews of the Fleet on “their gallant conduct during the fight of yesterday.” The Union Navy’s victory at Mobile, Alabama closed the last Confederate port east of New Orleans and allowed the coastal blockading squadron to concentrate their forces farther west, in Texas.
Intriguingly, Lambert’s diary mentions three times a particularly troublesome character called “Red Bill” who was leading rebel forces to board, capture, and destroy American ships. Even the Itasca was preparing: “More than all hands have “Febris [fever] Aggressive” Red Bill, and all hands have been ordered to be ready to repel boarders &c.” (October 24, 1864)
At the beginning of September, the Itasca was ordered to continue their blockading efforts all along the coast of Texas, patrolling the waters mostly near Galveston and Velasco (now Freeport), but as far north as “Sabin[e] Pass” and Brazos Santiago in the south near the Rio Grande River. “Station” keeping and the pursuit of blockade-runners continued there and, even though there were no more great battles, the rebels still proved to be dangerous.
The diary ends somewhat abruptly and mysteriously. The final two entries were made in pencil. On November 20, 1864 Lambert laconically reports the ship’s “after hole filled with water…” and states that water was above the furnace and the crew ordered to build a raft. The cause of the incident is uncertain and Lambert hints that some of the disastrous events he describes were only a dream.
Lambert’s is an untypical Civil War diary in that it is for a common sailor rather than a soldier. The manuscripts accompanying the diary augment the narrative. Together, their descriptions of naval service, coastal blockade duties in the Gulf of Mexico, and events surrounding the decisive Battle of Mobile Bay form a useful record documenting the tightening grip of the Union forces upon the fading Confederate strongholds.
Description: Civil War Diary covering the second enlistment of U. S. Naval Landsman Esbon C. Lambert of New Jersey, 1863–1864, including his service aboard the gunboat U. S. S. Itasca at the Battle of Mobile Bay; accompanying the diary is a letter by Lambert written from Mobile Bay days after the battle and describing the fight and its aftermath. [Mostly on board the steam gunboat U. S. S. Itasca], November 23, 1863–November 21, 1864. Diary. 7¾ x 6½ inches; half red leather with gilt rules on spine and marbled paper-covered boards; paper label titled in manuscript, “Private Diary,” on upper board; 61 leaves containing approx. 120 pages of ink and, some, pencil manuscript; all edges marbled. Accompanying the diary are two manuscript letters (seven total pages of manuscript) with holograph envelopes (one of which is a “patriotic cover”), two additional “patriotic covers,” one Union and one Confederate (only one of which, the former, was postally used; neither with accompanying letters; the Confederate cover is for the “Crescent Rifles. Company H, 7th Reg’t L[ouisiana]a. Volunteers.”), and a brief manuscript “List of Cargo on Sh[ip] [U. S. S.] ‘Kennebec’”.
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