As South Alabama prepared to mark the 150th anniversary of one of the Civil War’s most consequential naval engagements, a Fairhope artist was putting the finishing touches on a work that would bring a pair of paintings begun nearly two decades earlier full circle.
The commemoration of the Battle of Mobile Bay and the Siege of Fort Morgan, organizers said, would not be complete without the involvement of Dean Mosher, the artist who had immortalized the 1864 engagement in two striking oil paintings during the mid-1990s. One depicted the naval battle in all its frightening intensity; the other offered a close-up of U.S. Admiral David Farragut leading his men into the fight. Almost twenty years on, Mosher planned to unveil a third work on the morning of Saturday, Aug. 2 — a portrait of Confederate Admiral Franklin Buchanan.
Completing the story of the battle
“Buchanan represents the gallantry of the South,” Mosher said of his newest subject, whose ironclad CSS Tennessee had faced Farragut’s fleet at the mouth of Mobile Bay.
The unveiling was timed to coincide with a week of activity at Fort Morgan, which was being transformed in honor of the anniversary. Civil War reenactors from across the country were expected to flock to the peninsula to recreate the siege and naval battle across Aug. 1, 2 and 3. Mosher, though not a reenactor himself, said he welcomed the outpouring of interest.
“I encourage anybody who wants to participate in remembering history, at any level — it is a great thing,” he said. “I’m delighted so many people want to come down to Fort Morgan to celebrate that and take part in that.”
Chosen for his research
The Alabama Historical Commission approached Mosher about the piece in part because of his exacting research methods, according to Dr. Stephen McNair, the commission’s state director of historic sites.
“Upon first reviewing Dean’s work, the attention to detail and the historical accuracy is the first thing that I noticed,” McNair said. “After discussing his research methods, we found out that Dean goes above and beyond the duties of a typical artist in making sure that everything is accurate, ranging from the direction of the wind blowing, to the exact type of uniforms that we see on the officers, to the materials on the ships.”
That same rigor had shaped Mosher’s earlier depiction of Farragut. The artist said no one had previously rendered the Union admiral accurately, and that his portrait placed Farragut in the position and posture that surviving documents supported.
“I reconstructed all of that from the actual plans of the Hartford,” he said, referring to Farragut’s flagship, the USS Hartford.
A portrait that would travel
Prints of Mosher’s latest work were to be available for purchase throughout the anniversary weekend and, afterward, from the Alabama Historical Commission’s gift shop. The original portrait of Buchanan, McNair said, would likely be shown in rotation. After its display at Fort Morgan, the commission planned to exhibit it at various historic sites around the state.
For Mosher, the assignment was another chance to help re-create history without ever donning a uniform. He said he took pride in translating the events of August 1864 into images faithful enough to stand alongside the written record — a record that, in the case of the Battle of Mobile Bay, included Farragut’s famous order to press forward despite the mines, then known as torpedoes, that guarded the channel.
By pairing his long-admired battle scenes with a new study of the Confederate commander, Mosher completed a visual account that gave both fleets their due. As the reenactors gathered on the peninsula and visitors made their way to the fort, the artist’s three works together offered a way to look the 1864 battle in the eye a century and a half after the guns fell silent.