MOBILE BAY

arm of the Gulf of Mexico, extending 35 miles (56 km) north from its outlet to the mouth of the Mobile River in southwestern Alabama, U.S. It is 818 miles (1329 km) wide and has a dredged channel (32 feet deep, 300500 feet wide) that enters the Gulf between Dauphin Island and Mobile Point. Commercial traffic uses the Warrior-Tombigbee river system for travel north between the cities of Mobile (on the bay's northwestern shore) and Birmingham, Ala., and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway for travel east and west along the Gulf of Mexico. The bay was the scene of an American Civil War naval battle (Aug. 523, 1864) in which the Union admiral David Farragut ran a blockade of mines, dispersed the Confederate fleet, and secured surrender of the forts defending the bay, including the strongestFort Morgan at Mobile Point.