The Union had gained a maritime stranglehold over the Confederacy. Plenty of blockade runners still evaded the Northern ships, but rather few made it back to port: quite a few ended up rotting in the harbors of foreign nations.

David Glasgow Farragut had been out of action far longer than he liked. In the spring of 1864, he practically chomped at the bit to attack Mobile, Alabama, the biggest source for blockade runners. Only in July did Farragut get the go-ahead, and even then he was warned that the Confederates had placed torpedoes around the entrance to the harbor. Farragut had by now assembled seventeen wooden warships and several ironclad monitors, some of which contained not one but two turrets. In terms of overall firepower, his fleet held vastly more than the Confederate defenders. Even so, the attack, which was made on August 5, 1864, was not without risk.