Symposium Spotlight: Unpacking Mobile Bay’s Criticality
Welcome back to our spotlight series, highlighting speakers and topics for our upcoming symposium. Over the coming weeks, we will continue previewing of our speaker’s presentations for the 2024 Emerging Civil War Symposium. This week we feature Neil P. Chatelain’s topic.

Unpacking Mobile Bay’s Criticality
Thanks to battlefield setbacks, President Abraham Lincoln famously believed he would fail to win reelection in 1864. A series of victories that autumn shifted perceptions. Among them was the August 1864 battle of Mobile Bay. The engagement pitted robust fortifications, state of the art technologies, modern warships, and the senior admirals of the United States and Confederacy against one another. A critical evaluation of the battle’s course and impact sheds light on how it became a watershed moment in the history of the United States Navy and to what extent it helped pave the way for Lincoln’s reelection, and drive a final nail in the Confederacy’s coffin.
Find more information and tickets for our 2024 Symposium by clicking here.
Excited to hear about this. My GG Grandfather was on the USS Chickasaw at Mobile bay. 2nd Class Fireman George Denham.