CHAPTER VII.

THE CAPTURE OF NEW ORLEANS.

THE Crescent City was by far the largest and richest in the Confederacy. In 1860 it had a population of nearly 170,000, while Richmond, Mobile, and Charleston together had fewer than two thirds as many. In 1860-61 it shipped $25,000,000 worth of sugar and $92,000,000 worth of cotton, its export trade in these articles being larger than that of any other city in the world. Moreover, its

strategic value in that war was greater than that of any other point in the Southern States. The many mouths of the Mississippi, and the frequency of violent gales in the Gulf, rendered it difficult to blockade commerce between that great river and the ocean; but the possession of this lowest commercial point on the stream would shut it off effectively, and would go far toward securing possession all the way to Cairo. This would cut the Confederacy in two, and make it difficult to bring supplies from Texas and Arkansas to feed the armies in Tennessee and Virginia. Moreover, a great city is in itself a serious loss to one belligerent and a capital prize to the other.

As soon as it became evident that war was being waged against the United States in dead earnest, and that it was likely to be prolonged, these con

I 12

DEFENCES OF THE CITY.

[1862.

siderations presented themselves to the Government, and a plan was matured for capture of the largest city in the territory of the, insurgents.

The defences of New Orleans against an enemy approaching from the sea consisted of two forts, on

either side of the stream, thirty miles above the head of the five great passes through which it flows to the Gulf. The smaller, Fort St. Philip, on the left bank, was of earth and brick, with flanking batteries, and all its guns were en barbette - on the top, in plain sight. These numbered about forty. Fort Jackson, on the right bank, mounted seventyfive guns, fourteen of which were in bomb-proof casemates. Both of these works had been built by the United States Government. They were

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PLANS FOR BOMBARDMENT.

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now garrisoned by about one thousand five hundred Confederate soldiers, commanded by General Johnson K. Duncan. Above them lay a Confederate fleet of fifteen vessels, including an iron-clad ram and a large floating battery that was covered with railroad iron. Just below the forts a heavy chain was stretched across the river-perhaps suggested by the similar device employed to keep the British from sailing up the Hudson during the Revolutionary war. And it had a similar experience; for, at first supported by a row of enormous logs, it was swept away by the next freshet. The logs were then replaced by hulks anchored at intervals across the stream, and the chain ran over their decks, while its ends were fastened to great trees. One thing more completed the defence, two hundred sharp-shooters patrolled the banks between the forts and the head of the passes, to give warning of an approaching foe and fire at any one that might be seen on the decks.

The idea at Washington, probably originated by Commander (now Admiral) David D. Porter, was that the forts could be reduced by raining into them a sufficient shower of enormous shells, to be thrown high into the air, come down almost perpendicularly, and explode on striking. Accordingly, the first care was to make the mortars and shells, and provide the craft to carry them. Twenty-one mortars were cast, which were mounted on twenty-one schooners. They threw shells thirteen inches in diameter, weighing two hundred and eighty-five pounds; and when one of them was dis

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THE FLEET.

[1862.

charged, the concussion of the atmosphere was so great that no man could stand close by without being literally deafened. Platforms projecting beyond the decks were therefore provided, for the gunners to step out upon just before firing.

The remainder of the fleet, as finally made up, consisted of six sloops of war, sixteen gunboats, and five other vessels, besides transports carrying fifteen thousand troops commanded by General B. F. Butler. The whole number of guns was over two hundred. The flagship "Hartford" was a wooden steam sloop of war, one thousand tons burden, with a length of two hundred and twenty-five feet, and a breadth of forty-four feet. She carried twenty-two nine-inch guns, two twenty-pounder Parrott guns, and a rifled gun on the forecastle, while her fore and main tops were furnished with howitzers and surrounded with boiler iron to protect the gunners. The "Brooklyn," " Richmond," "Pensacola," "Portsmouth," and "Oneida," were similar to the "Hartford." The "Colorado" was larger. The "Mississippi "was a large side-wheel steamer.

This was the most powerful expedition that had ever sailed under the American flag, and the man that was chosen to command it, Captain David G. Farragut, was as unknown to the public as Ulysses S. Grant had been. But he was not unknown to his fellow-officers. Farragut was now sixty years of age, being one of the oldest men that took part in the war, and he had been in the navy half a century. He sailed the Pacific with Commodore Porter years before Grant and Sherman were

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ITS COMMANDER.

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born, and participated in the bloody encounter of the "Essex" and "Phoebe" in the harbor of Valparaiso. He was especially familiar with the Gulf of Mexico, and had pursued pirates through its waters and hunted and fought them on its islands. There was nothing to be done on shipboard that he could not do to perfection, and he could have filled the place of any man in the fleet -except perhaps the surgeon's. He was born in Tennessee, and married twice in Virginia; and if there had been a peaceable separation he would probably have made his home in the South. He was at Norfolk, waiting orders, when Virginia seceded, but he considered that his first duty was to the National Government, which had educated him for its service and given him rank and employment. When he said that "Virginia had been dragooned out of the Union," and that he thought the President was justified in calling for troops after the firing on Sumter, he was told by his angry neighbors that a person holding such sentiments could not live in Norfolk. "Very well, then," said he, "I can live somewhere else." So he made his way North with his little family, and informed the Government that he was ready and anxious for any service that might be assigned to him.

This was in April, 1861; but it was not till January, 1862, that he was appointed to command the New Orleans expedition and the Western Gulf blockading squadron. He sailed from Hampton Roads, February 2d, in the flag-ship "Hartford."