The Mobile Bay Combat
To the Editor of the New York Times:
I think Mr. Martin Freeman is mistaken in his statement that an officer of the United States ship Seminole received the surrender of the rebel ram Tennessee. I think he will find it was Acting Volunteer Lieut. Pierre Gerand, who went into the fight in Mobile Bay on Aug. 5, 1864, on board the United States ship Ossipee, and that the surrender was made to his ship. The Tennessee did not go into the fight, but kept off. He volunteered and went into the fight on the Ossipee, and afterward returned to the Tenneesee, which was subsequently named the Mobile, on board which ship seven of us were put on being picked up by the tugboat Buckthorn after our ship had been destroyed by a rebel torpedo. Ours was the Tecumseh, a monitor, concerning which it was said all hands on board excepting 17 were lost. I know of six besides myself who were picked up by the same boat. I was with Lieut. Gerand when his vessel took as prisoners the rebel General Page and his officers and conveyed them to New Orleans, and I staid on board that ship until she returned to the Brooklyn Navy Yard. I think if Mr. Martin Freeman had been in that small boat with us, pulling between the United States steamer Metacomet and the rebel gunboat Selma, he would not have seen Admiral Farragut at all, much less have seen him lashed to the rigging.
From one of the saved of the United States monitor Tecumseh, commanded by Capt. Tunis Craven, who went down on that morning with his Chief Engineer, John Farron.
PETER C. PARKER
SING SING, N.Y.
Thursday, June 2, 1887.
