This Country of Ours

by H. E. Marshall

Meanwhile command of the lower Mississippi had also been wrested from the Confederates by General Benjamin F. Butler in command of the army, and Commander David Glasgow Farragut in command of the fleet.

Captain Farragut who was already sixty-three at this time was a Southerner by birth, but he had never faltered in his allegiance to the Union. "Mind what I tell you," he said to his brother officers, when they tried to make him desert his flag, "you fellows will catch the devil before you get through with this business." And so unshaken was his faith that he was trusted with the most important naval expedition of the war, the taking of New Orleans.

New Orleans is about a hundred miles from the mouth of the Mississippi and the Confederates, who were aware even more than the Federals of the importance of the great waterway, had from the very beginning done their utmost to secure it. Seventy-five miles below New Orleans two forts named Jackson and St. Phillips guarded the approaches to the city. These the Confederates had enormously strengthened, and had stretched a great chain between them from bank to bank, to prevent the passage of hostile ships. They had also gathered a fleet of ironclads and gunboats further to defend the city.

But in spite of all these defenses the Federals determined to take New Orleans and on the 18th of April the Union ships began to bombard the forts. The Confederates replied fiercely, and for four days the sky seemed ablaze and the earth shook. Then having succeeded in cutting the chain across the river Farragut determined to sail past the fort and take New Orleans.

At two o'clock in the morning the ships began to move. The night was dark but very still and clear, and soon the noise of slipping anchor cables warned the enemy of what was afoot. Then a very hail of shot and shell fell upon the Federal boats. Burning fire ships too were sent down upon them, and the red light of battle lit up the darkness. Yet through the baptism of fire the vessels held on their way undaunted. The forts were passed, the Confederate fleet disabled and put to flight, and Farragut sailed unhindered up the river.

At his approach, New Orleans was seized with panic. Filled with a nameless fear women and children ran weeping through the streets, business of every kind was at a standstill. The men, mostly grey-haired veterans and boys, turned the keys in their office doors, and hurried to join the volunteer regiments, bent on fighting to the last for their beloved city. Thousands of bales of cotton were carried to the wharves, and there set on fire, lest they should fall into the hands of the enemy. Ships too were set on fire, and cast loose, till it seemed as if the whole river front was wrapped in flames. Thirty miles away the glare could be seen in the sky, and at the sight even strong men bowed their heads and wept. For they knew it meant that New Orleans had fallen, and that the Queen of Southern cities was a captive.

But there was no fighting, for General Lovell who was in command of the city marched away with his army as soon as the Union ships appeared. The citizens who were left were filled with impotent wrath and despair. They felt themselves betrayed. They had been assured that the city would fight to the last. Now their defenders had marched away leaving them to the mercy of the conqueror.

The streets were soon filled with a dangerous, howling cursing mob man of them armed, all of them desperate. Yet calmly through it, as if on parade, marched two Federal officers, without escort of protection of any kind. The mob jostled them, shook loaded pistols in their faces, yelling and cursing the while. But the two officers marched on side by side unmoved, showing neither anger nor fear, turning neither to right nor to left until they reached the city hall, where they demanded the surrender of the city.

"It was one of the bravest deeds I ever saw done," said a Southerner, who as a boy of fourteen watched the scene.

By the taking of New Orleans Farragut won for himself great fame. His fame was all the greater because in his fleet he had none of the newly invented ironclads. With only wooden vessels he had fought and conquered. "It was a contest between iron hearts and wooden vessels, and iron clads with iron beaks, and the iron hearts won," said Captain Bailey who served in the expedition under Farragut.