Today’s #stampoftheday, a $1 stamp picturing Admiral David Farragut that was issued on June 5, 1903, is yet another old stamp that in some ways connects to today’s turmoil, albeit in less insightful ways than some of the other recent stamps. Still, it reminds us that even in the face of real obstacles and danger sometimes you have to “damn the torpedoes and go full steam ahead.”
Farragut, who was from Tennessee, had an illustrious 60-year career in the Navy starting when he was nine when he was commissioned as a midshipman in 1810 and ending after the Civil War when became the first American given the rank of admiral. Several aspects of his life either resonate with or, in some way, impact our times. I’m struck, for example, by the fact that even though he spent much of his youth in New Orleans and though he was living in Norfolk, Virginia prior to the American Civil War, he made it clear to all who knew him that he regarded secession as treason. Just before the war’s outbreak, Farragut moved with his Virginian-born wife to Hastings-on-Hudson, a small town just outside New York City and offered his services to the Union.
Though initially viewed with suspicion by 1862 he was placed in command of the ultimately successful campaign to capture New Orleans and gain control of the Mississippi River, a key part of the Union’s strategy for winning the war by choking the Confederate economy. With the Union in control of the Mississippi, in August 1864, Farragut led an attack on Mobile Bay, in Alabama, which was home to the last major Confederate port on the Gulf of Mexico.
The bay was heavily mined with what were then known as “torpedoes.” Farragut ordered his fleet to charge the bay. When one ship struck a mine and sank, the others began to pull back. Farragut could see the ships pulling back. “What’s the trouble?” he shouted through a trumpet to USS Brooklyn. “Torpedoes”, was the shouted reply. While he supposedly replied, “damn the torpedoes. Four bells, Captain Drayton, go ahead. Jouett, full speed,” that response was shortened into the famous phrase “damn the torpedoes. Full speed ahead.” Regardless, the bulk of his fleet entered the bay and after a short battle, the Union Navy prevailed and the South lost its last port on the Gulf of Mexico, which contributed to its defeat and surrender less than a year later.
The Farragut stamp, which was the first to picture the noted admiral, is part of a series of 14 stamps issued in 1902 and 1903 that ranged from one cent to five dollars. The series is especially notable because it included the first stamp to picture an American woman, an 8-cent stamp featuring Martha Washington. (The first U.S. stamp to picture a woman was an 1893 stamp picturing Queen Isabella of Spain). Everyone else, of course, was a white man. These included Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Andrew Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant, and Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, and Benjamin Harrison (who made his first appearance on a stamp in this issue). Others portrayed in the series were Benjamin Franklin; two notable pre-Civil War U.S. Senators famed for their oratory and their skill as legislators (Henry Clay of Kentucky and Daniel Webster of New Hampshire) and John Marshall, the fourth chief justice of the Supreme Court (who, I believe, also made his first appearance on a stamp in this series).
What does all this have to do with our present predicament. First, I respect Farragut for his decision to support the Union, which I suspect meant choosing his principles over his friends. Second, I acknowledge that he clearly played a major role in defeating the Confederacy and, in doing so, at least bringing an end to slavery. And third, I admire a man who had the courage and wisdom to move forward despite apparent obstacles and dangers. There are times in all our lives when we have to “damn the torpedoes” and go “full speed ahead.”
Stay safe, be well, work for peace and fight for justice.