Mobile Bay was twelve, viz., three ironclads, two tinclads, and seven transports. Fifty-eight vessels were destroyed in Southern waters by torpedoes during the war; these included ironclads and others of no mean celebrity.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

Naval Affairs (continued).—Importance of New Orleans.—Attack feared from up the River.-Preparations for Defense.-Strength of the Forts.-Other Defenses.-The General Plan.-Ironclads.-Raft-Fleet of the Enemy.-Bombardment of the Forts commenced.-Advance of the Fleet.-Its Passage of the Forts.-Batteries below the City.-Darkness of the Night.-Evacuation of the City by General Lovell on Appearance of the Enemy.-Address of General Duncan to Soldiers in the Forts.-Refusal to surrender.-Meeting of the Garrison of Fort Jackson.-The Forts surrendered.-Ironclad Louisiana destroyed.-The Tugs and Steamers.-The Governor Moore.-The Enemy's Ship Varuna sunk.— The McRae.-The State of the City and its Defenses considered.-Public Indignation.-Its Victims.-Efforts made for its Defense by the Navy Department.-The Construction of the Mississippi.

NEW ORLEANS was the most important commercial port in the Confederacy, being the natural outlet of the Mississippi Valley, as well to the ports of Europe as to those of Central and Southern America. It was the depot which, at an early period, had led to controversies with Spain, and its importance to the interior had been a main inducement to the purchase of Louisiana. It had become before 1861 the chief cotton-mart of the United States, and its defense attracted the early attention of the Confederate Government. The approaches for an attacking party were numerous. They could through several channels enter Lake Pontchartrain, to approach the city in rear for land-attack, could ascend the Mississippi from the Gulf, or descend it from the Northwest, where it was known that the enemy was preparing a formidable fleet of iron-clad gunboats. In the early part of 1862, so general an opinion prevailed that the greatest danger to New Orleans was by an attack from above, that General Lovell sent to General Beauregard a large part of the troops then in the city.

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BUT NEITHER OF THEM WAS FINISHED.

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At the mouth of the Mississippi there is a bar, the greatest depth of water on which seldom exceeded eighteen feet, and it was supposed that heavy vessels of war, with their armament and supplies, would not be able to cross it. Such proved to be the fact, and the vessels of that class had to be lightened to enable them to enter the river. In that condition of affairs, an inferior fleet might have engaged them with a prospect of success. Captain Hollins, who was in command of the squadron at New Orleans, and who had on a former occasion shown his fitness for such service, had been sent with the greater part of his fleet up the river to join the defense there being made. Two powerful vessels were under construction, the Louisiana and the Mississippi, but neither of them was finished. A volunteer fleet of transport-vessels had been fitted up by some river-men, but it was in the unfortunate condition of not being placed under the orders of the naval commander. A number of fire-rafts had been also provided, which were to serve the double purpose of lighting up the river in the event of the hostile fleet attempting to pass the forts under cover of the night, and of setting fire to any vessel with which they might become entangled.

After passing the bar, there was nothing to prevent the ascent of the river until Forts. Jackson and St. Philip were reached. These works, constructed many years before, were on opposite banks of the river. Their armament, as reported by General Lovell, December 5, 1861, consisted of-Fort Jackson: six forty-two-pounders, twenty-six twenty-four-pounders, two thirtytwo-pounder rifles, sixteen thirty-two-pounders, three eightinch columbiads, one ten-inch columbiad, two eight-inch mortars, one ten-inch mortar, two forty-pounder howitzers, and ten twenty-four-pounder howitzers. Fort St. Philip: six forty-twopounders, nine thirty-two-pounders, twenty-two twenty-fourpounders, four eight-inch columbiads, one eight-inch mortar, one ten-inch mortar, and three field-guns.

General Duncan reported that, on the 27th of March, he was informed by Lieutenant-Colonel Higgins, commanding Forts Jackson and St. Philip, of the coast-defenses, which were under his (General Duncan's) command, that the enemy's fleet was crossing the bars, and entering the Mississippi River in

force; whereupon he repaired to Fort Jackson. After describing the condition of the forts from the excess of water and sinking of the entire site, as well as the deficiency of guns of heavy caliber in the forts, he proceeds:

"It became necessary in their present condition to bring in and mount, and to build the platforms for, the three ten-inch and three eight-inch columbiads, the rifled forty-two-pounder, and the five ten-inch seacoast mortars recently obtained from Pensacola on the evacuation of that place, together with the two rifled seveninch guns temporarily borrowed from the naval authorities in New Orleans. It was also found necessary to repair the old waterbattery to the rear of and below Fort Jackson, which had never been completed, for the reception of a portion of these guns, as well as to construct mortar-proof magazines, and shell-rooms within the same."

One of the seven-inch rifled guns borrowed from the navy was subsequently returned, so that, when the forts were attacked, the armament was one hundred and twenty-eight guns and

mortars.

The garrisons of Forts Jackson and St. Philip were about one thousand men on December 5, 1861; afterward, so far as I know, the number was not materially changed.

The prevailing belief that vessels of war, in a straight, smooth channel, could pass batteries, led to the construction of a raft between the two forts which, it was supposed, would detain the ships under fire of the forts long enough for the guns to sink them, or at least to compel them to retire. The power of the river when in flood, and the drift-wood it bore upon it, broke the raft; another was constructed, which, when the drift-wood accumulated upon it, met a like fate. Whether obstructions differently arranged-such as booms secured to the shores, with apparatus by which they could be swung across the channel when needful, or logs such as were used, except that, being unconnected together, but each separately secured by chain and anchor, they might severally yield to the pressure of the driftwood, sinking, so as to allow it to pass over them, and, when relieved of the weight, rising again-or whether other expe

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A VERY STRONG LINE OF DEFENSE.

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dient could have been made permanent and efficient, is a problem which need not be discussed, as the time for its application has passed from us.

The general plan for the defense of New Orleans consisted of two lines of works: an exterior one, passing through the forts near the mouth of the river, and the positions taken to defend the various water approaches; nearer to the city was the interior line, embracing New Orleans and Algiers, which was intended principally to repel an attack by land, but also, by its batteries on the river-bank, to resist approach by water. The total length of the intrenchments on this interior line was more than eight miles. When completed, it formed, in connection with impassable swamps, a very strong line of defense. At the then high stage of the river, all the land between it and the swamps was so saturated with water, that regular approaches could not have been made. The city, therefore, was at the time supposed to be doubly secure from a land-attack.

In the winter of 1861-'62 I sent one of my aides-de-camp to New Orleans to make a general inspection, and hold free conference with the commanding General. Upon his return, he reported to me that General Lovell was quite satisfied with the condition of the land-defenses so much so as to say that his only fear was that the enemy would not make a land-attack.

Considered since the event, it may seem strange that, after the fall of Donelson and Henry, and the employment of the enemy's gunboats in the Tennessee and Cumberland, it was still generally argued that the danger to New Orleans was that the gunboats would descend the Mississippi, and applications were made to have the ship Louisiana sent up the river as soon as she was completed.

The interior lines of defense mounted more than sixty guns of various caliber, and were surrounded by wide and deep ditches. On the various water approaches, including bays and bayous on the west and east sides of the river, there were sixteen different forts, and these, together with those on the river and the batteries of the interior line, had in position about three hundred guns.

One ironclad, the Louisiana, mounting sixteen guns of heavy

caliber, though she was not quite completed, was sent down to coöperate with the forts. Her defective steam-power and imperfect steering apparatus prevented her from rendering active coöperation. The steamship Mississippi, then under construction at New Orleans, was in such an unfinished condition as to be wholly unavailable when the enemy arrived. In the opinion of naval officers she would have been, if completed, the most powerful ironclad then in the world, and could have driven the enemy's fleet out of the river and raised the blockade at Mobile. There were also several small river-steamers which were lightly armed, and their bows were protected so that they could act as rams and otherwise aid in the defense of the river; but, from the reports received, they seem, with a few honorable exceptions, to have rendered little valuable service.

The means of defense, therefore, mainly relied on were the two heavy-armed forts, Jackson and St. Philip, with the obstruction placed between them: this was a raft consisting of cypress-trees, forty feet long, and averaging four or five feet at the larger end. They were placed longitudinally in the river, about three feet apart, and held together by gunwales on top, and strung upon two two-and-a-half-inch chain cables fastened to their lower sides. This raft was anchored in the river, abreast of the forts.

The fleet of the enemy below the forts consisted of seven steam sloops of war, twelve gunboats, and several armed steamers, under Commodore Farragut; also, a mortar-fleet consisting of twenty sloops and some steam-vessels. The whole force was forty-odd vessels of different kinds, with an armament of three hundred guns of heavy caliber, of improved models.

The bombardment of the forts by the mortar-fleet commenced on April 18th, and, after six days of vigorous and constant shelling, the resisting power of the forts was not diminished in any perceptible degree. On the 23d there were manifest preparations by the enemy to attempt the passage of the forts. This, as subsequently developed, was to be done in the following manner. The sloops of war and the gunboats were each formed in two divisions, and, selecting the darkest hour of the night, between 3 and 4 A. M. of the 24th, moved up the river in two