Every avenue to the outworks or to the city of Mobile was guarded by submarine torpedoes, so that it was impossible for any vessel drawing three feet of water to get within effective cannon-range of the defenses. Two ironclads attempted to get near enough to Spanish Fort to take part in the bombardment. They both struck torpedoes, and went to the bottom on Apalachie bar; thenceforward the fleet made no further attempt to encounter the almost certain destruction which they saw awaited any vessel which might attempt to enter the torpedo-guarded waters. But many were sunk when least expecting it. Some went down long after the Confederate forces had evacuated Mobile. The Tecumseh was probably sunk, says Major-General D. H. Maury,[56] on her own torpedo. While steaming in lead of Farragut's fleet she carried a torpedo affixed to a spar, which projected some twenty feet from her bows; she proposed to use this torpedo against the Tennessee, our only formidable ship; but, while passing Fort Morgan, a shot from that fort cut away the stays by which the torpedo was secured; it then doubled under her, and, exploding fairly under the bottom of the ill-fated ship, she careened and sank instantly in ten fathoms of water. Only six or eight of her crew of a hundred or more were saved. The total number of vessels sunk by torpedoes in 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.
[Footnote 53: See "Annual Cyclopaedia," 1861, p. 536.]
[Footnote 54: "The Story of the Confederate Ship Virginia," by William
Norris, Colonel Signal Corps, Confederate Army.]
[Footnote 55: See "Torpedo Warfare," "North American Review,"
September-October, 1878.]
[Footnote 56: Southern Historical Society Papers, January, 1877.]
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.
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-ponders, twenty-six twenty-four-pounders, two thirty-two-pounder rifles, sixteen thirty-two-pounders, three eight-inch 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-two-ponders, nine thirty-two-pounders, twenty-two twenty-four-pounders, four eight-inch columbiads, one eight-inch mortar, one ten-inch mortar, and three field-guns.