"Damn the torpedoes!" shouted Admiral Farragut from the rigging of his ship in the midst of the Battle of Mobile Bay.
That cry, uttered in 1864, and the orders that followed have become famous. They climaxed the career that began when Glasgow Farragut received his commission in the U.S. Navy before he was ten. He was in charge of a ship at twelve, and he quickly earned a reputation for fairness among men.
Southern ties made Farragut's loyalty subject to suspicion when the Civil War began. But when finally granted command of the Union's West Gulf Blockade, he proved a daring and imaginative leader. At Mobile Bay he won a victory that broke the power of the Southern fleet. The rank of Admiral in the United States Navy was created in his honor.
Jean Lee Latham's ability to re-create historical personalities and her broad knowledge of nautical subjects combine ideally in this exciting story of one of the great figures in American naval affairs.