Sailor

ADMIRAL FRANKLIN BUCHANAN --Charles Lee Lewis--Norman, Remington ($3-50).

Every U. S. schoolboy knows about the fight in Hampton Roads between the Monitor and the Merrimac, and about the naval battle in Mobile Bay, when Farragut said, "Damn the torpedoes! Jouett, full speed! Four bells, Captain Drayton!" But many a schoolboy's parents may have forgotten how one man played a principal role in both duels, was wounded in both. He was Franklin Buchanan, Admiral, Confederate States Navy.

Franklin Buchanan, probably named after the late great Ben Franklin, was born in Baltimore in 1800. At 15 he entered the U. S. Navy as midshipman, at $19 a month, and, like other midshipmen, found it hard to buy all the proper uniforms on that pay. At 23 he served under Commodore David Porter against the Caribbean pirates. Six years later he went as third lieutenant to the famed frigate Constellation, four years older than himself, which had spouted broadsides against the French, the English, the pirates of Tripoli. In 1835 he married Anne Catherine Lloyd of Baltimore, who bore him eight children--all daughters. When the Naval Academy at Annapolis was founded (1845), Buchanan was made Superintendent. A stern disciplinarian, he once unbent so far as to forward the following application from 38 cadets to the Secretary of the Navy: "Sir--We the undersigned midshipmen of the Naval School at Annapolis respectfully request permission to wear our beards, with the exception of that portion of it upon the upper lip."

When the Mexican War broke out (1846), there was no holding Sailor Buchanan: he applied for active service, was accepted, and saw it. "For services rendered in Mexico," he was officially complimented by the Maryland Legislature, presented with 160 acres in Iowa. The Civil War found him in command of Washington Navy Yard. He resigned, later asked to have his resignation reconsidered; was told curtly that his name had been "stricken from the rolls of the Navy." Sailor Buchanan said good-bye to his family, went to Richmond, became captain in the Confederate Navy. In March, 1862, in the reconditioned, ironclad Merrimac (rechristened the Virginia) he sallied out against the Union fleet blockading Norfolk. As they went into action, Sailor Buchanan spoke to his men. Said he: "Those ships must be taken, and you shall not complain that I do not take you close enough. Go to your guns!" Down went the U. S. S. Cumberland; the Congress went up in flames. Sailor Buchanan, wounded in the thigh, was promoted to Admiral. Soon after the Virginia's drawn battle with the Monitor, Norfolk was abandoned, the Virginia scuttled.

Buchanan's last and best fight was at Mobile Bay, two years later. As the ironclad Tennessee headed for the midst of Farragut's squadron, Buchanan ordered his bow gun "not to fire until the vessels are in actual contact." Surrounded by three monitors and all of Farragut's battleships, "for more than an hour [the Tennessee) withstood the combined pounding of 200 guns." Buchanan's leg was broken. Said he: "Well, Johnston, they have got me again. You'll have to look out for her now; it is your fight." Soon after, the Tennessee ran up the white flag, Buchanan was taken prisoner. Exchanged in '65, he returned to Mobile, helped defend the city until its capture, then gave his parole. When the war was over, he left his family once more, but only for a year, when he went back to Mobile as Secretary and

State Manager of the Alabama Branch of the Life Association of America. His last years were spent with his family in his mansion at Easton, Maryland, where Death came for him when he and the century were 74 years old.

The Author. Author Charles Lee Lewis specializes on naval warfare. His other books: Famous American Naval Officers; Life of Matthew Fontaine Maury, Pathfinder of the Seas; Famous Old-World Sea Fighters.

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