actual quotebut totally agree with the intent;
Farragut could see the ships pulling back from his high perch, where he was lashed to the rigging of his flagship, USS Hartford.
“What’s the trouble?”, he shouted through a trumpet to USS Brooklyn. “Torpedoes”, was the shouted reply. “Damn the torpedoes.”, said Farragut, “Four bells, Captain Drayton, go ahead. Jouett, full speed.”
The bulk of the fleet succeeded in entering the bay. Farragut triumphed over the opposition of heavy batteries in Fort Morgan and Fort Gaines to defeat the squadron of Admiral Franklin Buchanan.
I those days “torpedoes” referred to floating mines. The self-propelled Whitehead torpedo and forerunner of modern torpedoes wasn’t introduced until ca. 1866 after the CW.