Campfire and Battlefield / An Illustrated History of the Campaigns and Conflicts of the Great Civil War

by Rossiter Johnson; Selden Connor; John Brown Gordon; Henry W. B. Howard; O. O. Howard; John Tyler Morgan; John Clark Ridpath

CHAPTER X.

THE CAPTURE OF NEW ORLEANS.

NEW ORLEANS THE LARGEST SOUTHERN CITY—FORTS ON THE MISSISSIPPI—CAPT. DAVID G. FARRAGUT CHOSEN COMMANDER—GEN. BENJAMIN F. BUTLER IN COMMAND OF LAND FORCES—TERRIFIC BOMBARDMENT OF THE FORTS—CUTTING THE CHAIN ACROSS THE MISSISSIPPI—THE GREAT NAVAL BATTLE IN THE NIGHT—ALL THE FORTS AND THE CONFEDERATE FLEET CAPTURED BY FARRAGUT—SURRENDER OF NEW ORLEANS—GENERAL BUTLER'S CELEBRATED "WOMAN ORDER."

The Crescent City was by far the largest and richest in the Confederacy. In 1860 it had a population of nearly one hundred and seventy thousand, while Richmond, Mobile, and Charleston together had fewer than two-thirds as many. In 1860-61 it shipped twenty-five million dollars' worth of sugar and ninety-two million dollars' 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 considerations presented themselves to the Government, and a plan was matured for capture of the largest city in the territory of the insurgents.

PANORAMIC VIEW OF NEW ORLEANS—FEDERAL FLEET AT ANCHOR IN THE RIVER.

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 seventy-five guns, fourteen of which were in bomb-proof casemates. Both of these works had been built by the United States Government. They were now garrisoned by about one thousand five hundred Confederate soldiers, commanded by Gen. 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.

FROM PENSACOLA TO THE MOUTH OF THE MISSISSIPPI.

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 discharged, 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.

COMMANDER DAVID D. PORTER. (Afterward Rear-Admiral.)

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 Gen. 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, Capt. 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 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 2, in the flag-ship Hartford. Some sentences from the sailing-orders addressed to him by the Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles, are significant and suggestive. "As you have expressed yourself perfectly satisfied with the force given to you, and as many more powerful vessels will be added before you can commence operations, the department and the country require of you success.... There are other operations of minor importance which will commend themselves to your judgment and skill, but which must not be allowed to interfere with the great object in view, the certain capture of the city of New Orleans.... Destroy the armed barriers which these deluded people have raised up against the power of the United States Government, and shoot down those who war against the Union; but cultivate with cordiality the first returning reason which is sure to follow your success." In a single respect Farragut was not satisfied with his fleet. He had no faith in the mortars, and would rather have gone without them; but they had been ordered before he was consulted, and were under the command of his personal friend Porter. Perhaps his distrust of them arose from his knowledge that, in 1815, a British fleet had unavailingly thrown a thousand shells into a fort at this very turn of the river where he was now to make the attack.

The mortar schooners were to rendezvous first at Key West, and sail then for Ship Island, off Lake Borgne, where the transports were to take the troops and the war-vessels were to meet as soon as possible.

A considerable portion of March was gone before enough of the fleet had reached the rendezvous to begin operations. The first difficulty was to get into the river. The Eads jetties did not then exist, and the shifting mud-banks made constant soundings necessary for large vessels. The mortar schooners went in by Pass à l'Outre without difficulty; but to get the Brooklyn, Mississippi, and Pensacola over the bar at Southwest Pass required immense labor, and occupied two or three weeks. The Mississippi was dragged over with her keel ploughing a furrow a foot deep in the river bottom, and the Colorado could not be taken over at all.

INGENIOUS METHOD OF DISGUISING COMMANDER PORTER'S MORTAR FLOTILLA.

The masts of the mortar schooners were dressed off with bushes, to render them indistinguishable from the trees on shore near the forts. The schooners were then towed up to a point within range, and moored where the woods hid them, so that they could not be seen from the forts. Lieut. F. H. Gerdes of the Coast Survey had made a careful map of that part of the river and its banks, and elaborate calculations by which the mortars were to be fired with a computed aim, none of the gunners being able to see what they fired at. They opened fire on April 18, and kept up the bombardment steadily for six days and nights. Six thousand enormous shells—eight hundred tons of iron—were thrown high into the air, and fell in and around the forts. For nearly a week the garrison saw one of Porter's aërolites dropping upon them every minute and a half. They demolished buildings, they tore up the ground, they cut the levee and let in water, and they killed and mangled men; but they did not render the forts untenable nor silence their guns. The return fire sank one of the mortar boats and disabled a steamer. Within the forts about fifty men were killed or wounded—one for every sixteen tons of iron thrown.

SHIP ISLAND.

While the fleet was awaiting the progress of this bombardment, a new danger appeared. The Confederates had prepared several flat-boats loaded with dry wood smeared with tar and turpentine; and they now set fire to them one after another, and let them float down the stream. But Farragut sent out boats' crews to meet them, who grappled them with hooks, and either towed them ashore or conducted them past the fleet, and let them float down through the passes and out to sea.

In his General Orders, Farragut gave so many minute directions that it would seem as if he must have anticipated every possible contingency. Thus: "Trim your vessel a few inches by the head [that is, place the contents so that she will sink a little deeper at the bow than at the stern], so that if she touches the bottom she will not swing head down the river." "Have light Jacob-ladders made, to throw over the side for the use of the carpenters in stopping shot-holes, who are to be supplied with pieces of inch-board, lined with felt, and ordinary nails." "Have a kedge in the mizzen chains on the quarter, with a hawser bent and leading through in the stern chock, ready for any emergency; also grapnels in boats, ready to tow off fire-ships." "Have many tubs of water about the decks, both for extinguishing fire and for drinking." "You will have a spare hawser ready, and when ordered to take in tow your next astern do so, keeping the hawser slack so long as the ship can maintain her own position, having a care not to foul the propeller." It was this minute knowledge and forethought, quite as much as his courage and determination, that insured his success. In addition to his own suggestions he called upon his men to exercise their wits for the occasion, and the crews originated many wise precautions. As the attack was to be in the night, they painted the decks white to enable them to find things. They got out all the spare chains, and hung them up and down the sides of the vessels at the places where they would protect the machinery from the enemy's shot. Farragut's plan was to run by the forts, damaging them as much as possible by a rapid fire as he passed, then destroy or capture the Confederate fleet, and proceed up the river and lay the city under his guns.

The time fixed upon for starting was just before moonrise (3:30 o'clock) in the morning of April 24. On the night of the 20th two gunboats went up the river, and a boat's crew from one of them, under Lieut. Charles H. B. Caldwell, boarded one of the hulks and cut the chain, under a heavy fire, making an opening sufficient for the fleet to pass through. Near midnight of the 23d the lieutenant went up again in a gunboat, to make sure that the passage was still open, and this time the enemy not only fired on him, but sent down blazing rafts and lighted enormous piles of wood that they had prepared near the ends of the chain. The question of moonrise was no longer of the slightest importance, since it was as light as day for miles around. Two red lanterns displayed at the peak of the flag-ship at two o'clock gave the signal for action, and at half-past three the whole fleet was in motion.

The sloop Portsmouth, and Porter's gunboats moved up to a point where they could engage the water-battery of Fort Jackson while the fleet was going by. The first division of eight vessels, commanded by Capt. Theodorus Bailey, who was almost as old and as salt as Farragut, passed through the opening in deliberate fashion, unmindful of a fire from Fort Jackson, ran over to the east bank, and poured grape and canister into Fort St. Philip as they sailed by, and ten minutes afterward found themselves engaged at close quarters with eleven Confederate vessels. Bailey's flag-ship, the Cayuga, was attacked by three at once, all trying to board her. He sent an eleven-inch shot through one of them, and she ran aground and burst into a blaze. With the swivel gun on his forecastle he drove off the second; and he was preparing to board the third when the Oneida and Varuna came to his assistance. The Oneida ran at full speed into one Confederate vessel, cutting it nearly in two, and in an instant making it a shapeless wreck. She fired into others, and then went to the assistance of the Varuna, which had been attacked by two, rammed by both of them, and was now at the shore, where she sank in a few minutes. But she had done effective work before she perished, crippling one enemy so that she surrendered to the Oneida, driving another ashore, and exploding a shell in the boiler of a third. The Pensacola steamed slowly by the forts, doing great execution with her rifled guns, and in turn sustaining the heaviest loss in the fleet—thirty-seven men. In an open field men can dodge a cannon-ball; but when it comes bouncing in at a port-hole unannounced, it sometimes destroys a whole gun's-crew in the twinkling of an eye. In such an action men are under the highest possible excitement; every nerve is awake, and every muscle tense; and when a ball strikes one it completely shatters him, as if he were made of glass, and the shreds are scattered over the ship. The Mississippi sailed up in handsome style, encountered the Confederate ram Manassas, and received a blow that disabled her machinery. But in turn she riddled the ram and set it on fire, so that it drifted away and blew up. The other vessels of this division, with various fortune, passed the forts and participated in the naval battle.

The second division consisted of three sloops of war, the flag-ship leading. The Hartford received and returned a heavy fire from the forts, got aground on a shoal while trying to avoid a fire-raft, and a few minutes later had another raft pushed against her, which set her on fire. A portion of the crew was detailed to extinguish the flames, and all the while her guns were loaded and fired as steadily as if nothing had happened. Presently she was got afloat again, and proceeded up the river, when, suddenly, through the smoke, as it was lighted by the flashes of the guns, she saw a steamer filled with men bearing down upon her, probably with the intention of carrying her by boarding. But a ready gun planted a huge shell in the mysterious stranger, which exploded, and she disappeared—going to the bottom, for aught that anybody knew. The Brooklyn, after getting out of her course and running upon one of the hulks, finally got through, met a large Confederate steamer, and gave it a broadside that set it on fire, and then poured such a rain of shot into St. Philip that the bastions were cleared in a minute, and in the flashes the gunners could be seen running to shelter. A Confederate gunboat that attacked her received eleven shells from her, all of which exploded, and it then ran ashore in flames. The Richmond sailed through steadily and worked her guns regularly, meeting with small loss, because she was more completely provided with splinter-nettings than her consorts, as well as because she came after them.

CAPTAIN DAVID G. FARRAGUT. (Afterward Admiral.)

PASSAGE OF THE SECOND DIVISION OF THE FEDERAL SQUADRON BY FORTS JACKSON AND ST. PHILIP.

The third division consisted of six gunboats. Two of them became entangled among the hulks, and failed to pass. Another received a shot in her boiler, which compelled her to drop down stream and out of the fight. The other three went through in gallant style, both suffering and inflicting considerable loss from continuous firing, and burned two steamboats and drove another ashore before they came up with the advance divisions of the fleet. The entire loss had been thirty-seven killed and one hundred and forty-seven wounded.

Captain Bailey, in the Cayuga, still keeping the lead, found a regiment encamped at Quarantine Station, and compelled its surrender. On the morning of the 25th the Chalmette batteries, three miles below the city, were silenced by a fire from the sloops, and a little later the city itself was at the mercy of their guns. At noon Captain Bailey, accompanied only by Lieut. George H. Perkins, with a flag of truce, went ashore, passed through an excited crowd that apparently only needed a word to be turned into a mob, and demanded of the Mayor that the city be surrendered unconditionally and the Louisiana State flag at once hauled down from the staff on the City Hall. Bailey raised the stars and stripes over the Mint; but the Mayor at first refused to strike his colors, and set out upon an elaborate course of letter-writing, which was of no consequence except as it furnished another instance of the fatuity that grasps at a shadow after the substance is gone.

CAPTURE OF NEW ORLEANS.

A letter written by Lieutenant Perkins at the time gives a vivid description of this incident, which is interesting in that it exhibits the effect upon the first people of the South who realized the possibility of their being conquered. "Among the crowd were many women and children, and the women were shaking rebel flags and being rude and noisy. As we advanced, the mob followed us in a very excited state. They gave three cheers for Jeff Davis and Beauregard, and three groans for Lincoln. Then they began to throw things at us, and shout, 'Hang them! Hang them!' We reached the City Hall in safety, and there found the Mayor and Council. They seemed in a very solemn state of mind; though I must say, from what they said, they did not impress me as having much mind about anything. The Mayor said he had nothing to do with the city, as it was under martial law, and we were obliged to wait till General Lovell could arrive. In about half an hour this gentleman appeared. He was very pompous in his manner, and silly and airy in his remarks. He had about fifteen thousand troops under his command, and said he would 'never surrender,' but would withdraw his troops from the city as soon as possible, when the city would fall into the hands of the Mayor, and he could do as he pleased with it. The mob outside had by this time become perfectly infuriated. They kicked at the doors, and swore they would have us out and hang us. Every person about us who had any sense of responsibility was frightened for our safety. As soon as the mob found out that General Lovell was not going to surrender, they swore they would have us out any way; but Pierre Soule and some others went out and made speeches to them, and kept them on one side of the building, while we went out at the other end and were driven to the wharf in a close carriage. The Mayor told the Flag-officer this morning that the city was in the hands of the mob, and was at our mercy, and that he might blow it up or do with it as he chose."

OLD CITY HALL, NEW ORLEANS, WHERE THE SURRENDER OF THE CITY WAS DEMANDED.

On the night of the 24th, by order of the authorities in the city, the torch was applied to everything, except buildings, that could be of use to the victors. Fifteen thousand bales of cotton, heaps of coal and wood, dry-docks, a dozen steamboats and as many cotton-ships, and an unfinished ironclad ram were all burned. Barrels were rolled out and broken open, the levee ran with molasses, and the poor people carried away the sugar in their baskets and aprons. The Governor called upon the people of the State to burn their cotton, and two hundred and fifty thousand bales were destroyed.

Butler had witnessed the passage of the forts, and he now hurried over his troops and invested St. Philip on the land side, while Porter sent some of his mortar-boats to a bay in the rear of Fort Jackson, and in a few days both works were surrendered. Farragut sent two hundred and fifty marines into the city to take formal possession and guard the public buildings. Butler arrived there with his forces on the 1st of May, and it was then turned over to him, and it remained in Federal possession throughout the war. His administration of the captured city, from May to December, was the subject of much angry controversy; but no one denies that he reduced its turbulence to order, made it cleaner than it had ever been before, and averted a pestilence. He also caused provisions to be issued regularly to many of the needy inhabitants.

The most famous incident of his administration was what became known as "the woman order." Many of the women of New Orleans, even while they were living on food issued to them by the National commissary, took every possible pains to flaunt their disloyalty and to express contempt for the wearers of the blue uniform. If an officer entered a street car, all the women would immediately leave it. If a detachment of soldiers passed through a residence street, many windows were thrown open and "Dixie" or the "Bonny Blue Flag" was loudly played on the piano. If the women met an individual soldier on the sidewalk, they drew their skirts closely around them and passed at its extreme edge. And all the while they took every opportunity to display small rebel flags on their bosoms and to proclaim loudly that their city was "captured but not conquered." These things were borne with patience; but when one woman, enraged at the imperturbable calmness of the city's captors, stepped up to two officers in the street and spat in their faces, General Butler judged that the time for putting a stop to such proceedings had come. Accordingly, he issued General Orders No. 28, which read thus:

"As the officers and soldiers of the United States have been subject to repeated insults from the women (calling themselves ladies) of New Orleans, in return for the most scrupulous noninterference and courtesy on our part, it is ordered that hereafter when any female shall, by word, gesture, or movement, insult or show contempt for any officer or soldier of the United States, she shall be regarded and held liable to be treated as a woman of the town plying her avocation."

This immediately produced two effects. It put an end to the annoyances, and it raised an uproar of denunciation based upon the assumption that the commanding officer had ordered his soldiers to insult and assault the ladies of New Orleans. Of course no such thing was intended, or could be implied from any proper construction of the words of the order; but in war, as in politics, it is sometimes considered good strategy to misrepresent an opponent. However honest any Confederate citizen or editor may have been in his misconstruction of it, no soldier misunderstood it, and no incivility was offered to the women who were thus subdued by the wit and moral courage of perhaps the most successful man that ever undertook the task of ruling a turbulent city.

One other incident attested the firmness of General Butler's purpose, and assured the citizens of the presence of a power that was not to be trifled with. After Farragut had captured the city and raised the National colors over the Mint, four men were seen to ascend to the roof and tear down the flag, and it was only by a lucky accident that the gunners of the fleet were prevented from instantly discharging a broadside into the streets. The act was exploited in the New Orleans papers, which ostentatiously published the names of the four men and praised their gallantry. General Butler caused the leader of the four, a gambler, to be arrested and tried by a court-martial. He was sentenced to death, and in spite of every solicitation the General refused to pardon him. He was hanged in the presence of an immense crowd of citizens, the gallows being a beam run out from one of the windows of the highest story of the Mint building.

GROUP OF SAILORS ON A GUNBOAT.

GENERAL BUTLER'S HEADQUARTERS, NEW ORLEANS.

At the first news of this achievement the people of the North hardly appreciated what had been accomplished; many of their newspapers told them that the fleet "had only run by the forts." But as they gradually learned the particulars, and saw that in fighting obstructions, fire-rafts, forts, rams, and fleet, and conquering them all, Farragut had done what neither Nelson nor any other great admiral had ever done before, they felt that the country had produced a worthy companion for the victor of Donelson, and was equal to all emergencies, afloat or ashore.

CAPTURE OF ISLAND No. 10, DURING A VIOLENT HURRICANE, APRIL 1, 1862.