to attack the Union squadron. The monitor was forced to turn the entire ship to bring her guns to bear and did not play a significant part in the second phase of the battle before Tennessee was forced to surrender at 09:45. During the battle, Winnebago was hit 19 times, three of which penetrated the deck near her aft turret, although she suffered no casualties. Despite the problems with her turrets, the ship managed to fire 56 shells, a mixture of solid shot, explosive shells, grapeshot, canister shot, and shrapnel shells. Winnebago intermittently bombarded Fort Morgan and Fort Gaines until they surrendered, on 24 and 6 August, respectively. On the night of 8 August, Commander Stevens sent a boat crew under the command of Acting Ensign Michael Murphy on a successful mission to cut the telegraph cable between Fort Morgan and the city of Mobile. The fort surrendered on 24 August and the ship remained at Mobile Bay into 1865 supporting Union forces. On 27 March, Union forces advanced on Spanish Fort as the first step in capturing Mobile. The Navy's role was to bombard the defenses and to interdict their communications with Mobile, but the defenders had sown mines in great numbers in the waterways. The Navy successfully swept many of these, but could not completely clear the rivers. Winnebago and her sister sailed upriver on 28 March to attack a Confederate transport and forced it to retreat, but Milwaukee struck a mine, in an area previously swept, as they were returning downriver. She remained afloat forward, which permitted her crew to escape without loss. Winnebago later protected a convoy carrying some 13,000 troops under Major General Frederick Steele, to Selma and Montgomery, Alabama later in April. By 28 April, the monitor, together with the gunboats and , was blockading the Confederate ironclad Nashville and the gunboat Morgan up the Tombigbee River, until their surrender. Winnebago was placed in ordinary on the Algiers side of the Mississippi, across from New Orleans, on 27 September. She was renamed twice during that time, first to Tornado on 15 June 1869 and then she resumed her original name on 10 August 1869. Winnebago was sold at auction on 12 September 1874. Notes References Milwaukee-class monitors Ships built in St. Louis 1863 ships Ships of the Union Navy American Civil War monitors of the United States