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CAPTURE OF FORTS JACKSON AND ST. PHILIP.

339

In the mean time Porter had been pounding Fort Jackson terribly with the shells from his mortars. On the 26th, he sent a flag of truce with a demand for its surrender, and saying that he had information that Commodore Farragut was in possession of New Orleans. On the following morning, Colonel Higgins, the commander of the forts, replied that he had no official information of the surrender of New Orleans, and, until such should be received by him, no proposition for a surrender of the works under his command could be entertained for a moment. On the same day, General Duncan, then in Fort Jackson, issued an address to the soldiers, as the commander of the coast defenses, urging them to continue the contest, saying: "The safety of New Orleans and the cause of the Southern Confederacy-our homes, families, and every thing dear to man-yet depend upon our exertions. We are just as capable of repelling the enemy to-day as we were before the bombardment." But the soldiers did not all agree with him in opinion. They saw the blackened fragments of vessels and other property strewing the swift current of the Mississippi, and were satisfied that the rumors of the fall of New Orleans that had reached them were true. They had also heard of Butler's troops in the rear of Fort St. Philip. So that night a large portion of the garrison mutinied, spiked the guns bearing up the river, and the next day sallied out and surrendered themselves to Butler's pickets on that side of the river, saying they had been impressed, and would fight the Government no longer.

Colonel Higgins now saw that all was lost, and he hastened to accept the generous terms which Porter

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had offered. While these terms were being reduced to writing in the cabin of the Harriet Lane,' Mitchell towed his battery (the Louisiana), which lay above the forts, out into the strong current, set her on fire, and abandoned her, with her all guns shotted. He expected she would blow up in the midst of the mortar-fleet, but the explosion occurred when she was abreast of Fort St. Philip, when a flying fragment from her killed one of

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its garrison. She at once went to the bottom of the river, and the remaining Confederate steamers surrendered without resist

PLAN OF FORT JACKSON.

1 The capitulation was signed on the part of the Nationals by Commanders David D. Porter and W. B Renshaw, and Lieutenant W. W. Wainright, commander of the Harriet Lane; and on the part of the Confederates by General J. K. Duncan, commander of the coast defenses, and Colonel Edwin Higgins, the commander of the forts. The writer was informed by an officer of the navy who was present at the surrender of Fort Jackson, that when the flag-officer of that work was asked for the garrison flag, which was not to be seen, he pretended to be ignorant of its whereabouts. He appeared to be unduly corpulent, and, on a personal examination, It was found that his obesity was caused by the flag, which was wrapped around his body.

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EXCITEMENT IN NEW ORLEANS.

ance. Commodore Porter turned over the forts and all their contents to General Phelps. Fort Jackson was only injured in its interior works, and Fort St. Philip was as perfect as when the bombardment began. No reliable report of the losses of the Confederates in killed and wounded was ever given. The number of prisoners surrendered, including those of the Chalmette regiment and on board of the gun-boats last taken, amounted to nearly one thousand. The entire loss of the Nationals, from the beginning of the contest until New Orleans was taken, was forty killed and one hundred and seventy-seven wounded.

1862.

Porter told Higgins the truth when he said Farragut was in possession of New Orleans. The city was really lost when the Commodore's thirteen armed vessels were lying in safety and in fair condition at April 24, the Quarantine." Of this imminent peril of the city General Lovell had been impressed early that morning. He had come down in his steamer Doubloon, and arrived just as the National fleet was passing the forts. He came near being captured in the terrible mêlée on the river that ensued, and sought safety on shore. Then he hastened to New Orleans as fast as courier horses could take him, traveling

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MANSFIELD LOVELL.

chiefly along the levee, for much of the country was overflowed. He arrived there early in the afternoon, and confirmed the intelligence of disaster which had already reached the citizens. A

fearful panic ensued. Drums were beating; soldiers were seen hurrying to and fro; merchants fled from their stores; women without bonnets and brandishing pistols were seen in the streets, crying, "Burn the city! Never mind us! Burn the city!" Military officers impressed vehicles into the service of carrying cotton to the levees to be burned. Specie, to the amount of four millions of dollars, was sent out of the city by railway; the consulates were crowded with foreigners deposit

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TWIGGS'S HOUSE,3

1 There seems to have been no kindly co-operation between the forts and the Confederate fleet, and some very spicy correspondence occurred between General Duncan and Captain Mitchell. The former, in his official report, declared that the great disaster was "the sheer result of that lack of cheerful and hearty co-operation from the defenses afloat" which he had a right to expect.

2 Over 1,800 shells fell inside of Fort Jackson, 170 in the water-battery, and about 8,000 in the ditches around the works. For minute particulars of the battle and its results, see the reports of Captains Farragut and Porter, and their subordinate commanders; of General Butler and those under his command; and of General Duncan and Colonel Higgins, of the Confederate forces

3 This was the appearance of Twiggs's residence when the writer visited it, in the spring of 1866. It was a

MILITARY EVACUATION OF NEW ORLEANS.

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ing their money and other valuables for safety from the impending storm; and poor old Twiggs, the traitor, like his former master, Floyd, fearing the wrath of his injured Government, fled from his home, leaving in the care of a young woman the two swords which had been awarded him for his services in Mexico, to fall into the hands of the conquerors who speedily came.'

On his way to New Orleans, Lovell had ordered General Smith, who was in command of the river defenses below the town, known as the Chalmette batteries, to make all possible resistance; and in the city he tried to raise a thousand volunteers, who should make a desperate attempt to board and capture the National vessels, but

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Lovell was satisfied himself, and he convinced the city authorities that the regular and volunteer troops under his immediate command were too few to make resistance, and he could not rely on the militia conscripts, nor a regiment of free colored men who had been pressed into the service, in the presence of foes that they might welcome as their friends. These considerations, and the fact that, on account of the height of the river surface at

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OF THE MISSISSIPPI

NEW ORLEANS AND ITS VICINITY.

that time of flood, a gun-boat might pass up to Kenner's plantation, ten miles above the city, and command the narrow neck between the river and the swamp, across which the railway passes, and thus prevent the troops and supplies going out, or supplies and re-enforcements going into the town, made it absolutely necessary that they should escape as soon as possible. So Lovell prepared to abandon New Orleans. He disbanded the conscripts, and sent stores, munitions of war, and other valuable property up the country by steamboats and the railroad; and while a portion of the volunteers hastened to Camp Moore, on the Jackson and New Orleans

large brick house, at the junction of Camp and Magazine Streets, and was then used by General Canby, the commander of the Department, as the quarters of his paymaster.

1 Parton's Butler in New Crleans, page 264

2 These were on each side of the river. There were five 32-pounders on one side and nine on the other.

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DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY AT NEW ORLEANS.

railway, seventy-eight miles distant, the regiment of colored troops refused to go.

With nine vessels Farragut proceeded up the river on the morning of the 25th, and when near the English Turn he met evidences of the abandonment of New Orleans by the Confederates in the form of blazing ships, loaded with cotton, that came floating down the stream. Soon afterward, he discovered the Chalmette batteries on both sides of the Mississippi, a few miles below the city, and at once made dispositions to attack them. The river was so full that his vessels completely commanded the Confederate works. Moving in two lines, they proceeded to the business of disabling them. The gallant Bailey, who had not noticed the signal for close order, was far ahead with the Cayuga, and for twenty minutes she sustained a heavy crossfire alone. Farragut pressed forward with the Hartford, and, passing the Cayuga, gave the batteries such destructive broadsides of shell, grape, and shrapnel that at the first discharge the Confederates were driven from their guns. The Pensacola and the Brooklyn, and then the remainder of the fleet, followed the Hartford's example, and in the course of twenty minutes the batteries were silenced and their men were running for their lives.

The victors were now in the midst of a terrific scene. The river was strewn with fire rafts, burning steamers, and blazing cotton bales, and overhung by an awful canopy of black smoke, sent up by the great conflagration. As soon as it was known that the National vessels were approaching the city, another great panic prevailed, and the work of destruction of property commenced, by order of the Governor of Louisiana and General Lovell.1 In a very short time a sheet of flame and pall of smoke, caused by burning cotton, sugar, and other staples of that region, were seen along the levee for the

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rious presses along the river front it was piled and fired, and in this way no less than fifteen thousand bales, valued at one million five hundred thousand dollars, were consumed. More than a dozen large ships, some of them laden with cotton, and as many magnificent steamboats, with unfinished gunboats and other vessels, were soon wrapped in flames and sent floating down the river, the Confederates hoping they might destroy the approaching

1 Pollard, i. 816.

COMMODORE FARRAGUT AT NEW ORLEANS.

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vessels.1 But the latter all escaped, and at about one o'clock in the afternoon Farragut's squadron was anchored off the city, while a violent thunderstorm was raging.

New Orleans was now utterly defenseless. Lovell was there, but a greater portion of his troops had been sent away, with the concurrence of the civil authorities, who wished to spare the town the horrors of a bombardment. Captain Bailey was sent ashore with a flag, bearing a summons from Farragut for the surrender of the city, and a demand that the Confederate flag should be taken down and that of the Republic raised over the public buildings. Bailey made his way through a hooting, cursing crowd to the City Hall, escorted by sensible citizens. To the demand for surrender, Lovell returned an unqualified refusal, but saying, that as he was powerless to hold the city against great odds, and wishing to save it from destruction, he would withdraw his troops and turn it over to the civil authorities. At the same time he advised the Mayor not to surrender the city, nor allow the flags to be taken down by any of its people.

Acting upon this foolish advice, the Mayor (John T. Monroe), one of the most unworthy of the public men of the day, refused to surrender the city or take down the Louisiana flag from the City Hall. This refusal was in the form of a most ridiculous letter to Farragut, in which the Mayor declared that, while his people could not prevent the occupation of the city by the National forces, they would not transfer their allegiance to a government they had deliberately repudiated. In the mean time a force had landed from the Pensacola, which was lying opposite Esplanade Street, and, unopposed, hoisted the National flag over the Government Mint; but as soon as they retired it was torn down and dragged in derision through the streets by young men belonging to the Pinckney Battalion, and a gambler named William B. Mumford. This act was hailed with acclamation by the secessionists of New Orleans, and caused paragraphs of praise and exultation to appear in the public journals. It ended in a serious tragedy, as we shall observe presently.

In reply to the Mayor's absurd letter, the patient Farragut referred to the pulling down of the flag, the indignities to which it was subjected, and the insults offered to his officers, and said, with a meaning which the most obtuse might understand, "all of which go to show that the fire of this fleet may be drawn upon the city at any moment, and in such an event the levee would, in all probability, be cut by the shells, and an amount of distress ensue to the innocent population which I have heretofore endeavored to assure you that I desire by all means to avoid." He concluded by saying, "The election, therefore, is with you; but it becomes my duty to notify you to remove the women and children from the city within forty-eight hours, if I have rightly understood your determination."

1 The shipyard at Algiers, opposite New Orleans, was burned, and with it an immense armored ram called Mississippi, which was considered the most important naval structure which the Confederates had yet undertaken.

2" As to the hoisting of any flag," he said, "than the flag of our own adoption and allegiance, let me say to you, Sir, that the man lives not in our midst whose hand and heart would not be palsied at the mere thought of such an act; nor could I find in my entire constituency so wretched and desperate a renegade as would dare to profane with his hand the sacred emblem of our aspirations."

3 There was no guard left at the Mint to defend the flag, but a watch was set in the top of the Pensacola, from which a howitzer hurled grape-shot at the men who pulled down the flag, but without effect.

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