AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN F. LACEY 413 



Steele to proceed with the organization of troops for the 

 Mobile campaign. The regiments reported at Kenner- 

 ville, twelve miles above New Orleans, and were there 

 reshipped for Mobile Bay and Barrancas, near Pensacola. 



We afterwards followed the troops, spending a week 

 at Fort Morgan and then went to Barrancas. Steele's 

 army reorganized there and he sent Colonel A. B. Spur- 

 ling's cavalry brigade from Milton up into Alabama while 

 the infantry marched by way of Pollard to Blakely. 



Spurling made a brilliant raid through Alabama, cap- 

 turing more men than his own brigade amounted to. 

 We met General Claxton near Pollard, badly wounded 

 him, and captured nearly all his brigade. 



We met the enemy near Blakely and drove them into 

 the works and at once entered upon a regular siege. At 

 Spanish Fort many of our old army of Arkansas troops 

 took part in the siege, including the Thirty-third Iowa 

 and Steele 's old regiment the Eighth Iowa Infantry. 



I will not give the details of this siege. On April 9th 

 we charged the works and took them by storm. I went 

 into the works with Steele who joined the charging party 

 of the Thirty-fourth Iowa. Lee surrendered to Grant 

 that same morning at Appomattox, but we did not know 

 it, and so the storming at Blakely was the last real battle 

 of the war. 



General Canby recommended me for a brevet for this 

 campaign and I was brevetted major. Grant had re- 

 quested Canby to give Steele the Thirteenth Corps which 

 would haye given me the rank of lieutenant-colonel and 

 A. A. G., but Canby gave the corps to Granger and gave 

 Steele an independent command composed of part of 

 Granger's corps, the colored division of Hawkins, and a 

 force of cavalry. The position was a better one for Steele 

 but prevented his staff from obtaining corps rank. 



For some months I had foreseen the collapse of the 



