The Chickasaw was as conspicuous in the bombardment as she had been in all her work since entering the bay.  It was not in Perkins’s temperament to be otherwise, and said an eye-witness at the time:  “It was a glorious sight to see the gallant Perkins in the Chickasaw, nearly all the morning almost touching the wharf, and pouring in his terrible missiles, two at a time, making bricks and mortar fly in all directions, then moving ahead or astern a little to get a fresh place.  He stayed there till nearly noon, when he hauled off to cool his guns and give his men some refreshment.  In the afternoon, he took his ship in again, and turret after turret was emptied at the poor fort.”

Perkins sent home the flag that had flown over the fort during the bombardment he obtained it in this wise:  “The sailors from this ship,” said he, “hauled down the flag, and one of them seized it and hid it in his bosom; there was not much left of it; it was riddled and torn.  He brought it to me, declaring that no one had a right to it but the captain of the Chickasaw.  I hardly knew what to do about it, but the man seemed so earnest I could not refuse to take it from him.”

The bay was now sealed to blockade runners, and Mobile, measured as to its commercial importance to the Confederacy, might as well have been located among the mountains of northern Alabama as on the Gulf; and owing to strategic reasons, operations for its immediate reduction came to a halt.  But on the twenty-seventh of March, 1865, the land and naval forces began a joint movement against the defences surrounding the city, and on the twelfth of April the Union forces were in full possession.  In these last operations, which cost the loss of two light draught ironclads, a gunboat, and several other smaller vessels by torpedoes, we may know that the Chickasaw was never in the background.

In July, Perkins was relieved from the command and ordered home.  He had volunteered for the Mobile fight but had been detained on board the Chickasaw nearly thirteen months.

On his arrival home, he was overwhelmed with congratulations upon his gallantry and achievements in Mobile Bay; but his friends felt indignant that no promotion had followed them, believing that at least the thirty numbers authorized by statute, “for eminent and conspicuous conduct in battle,” could not be reasonably denied him.  But he would not work personally toward that end, nor pull political wires to attain it.  With him, the promotion must come unasked or not at all.  It never came, and others disputed, with unblushing effrontery, the laurels he had won.  Not only that, but he has seen, as well as others, those who did the least service during the war, given recognition and place over those who “bore the heat and burden of the day,” during those four years so momentous in the annals of the Republic.