Screw corvettes: Oneida, nine guns, Commander S. Phillips Lee; Varuna, ten guns, Commander Charles S. Boggs; Iroquois, seven guns, Commander John De Camp.
Screw gunboats: Cayuga, two guns, Lieut. Napoleon B. Harrison; Itasca, two guns, Lieut. C. H. B. Caldwell; Katahdin, two guns, Lieut. George H. Preble; Kennebec, two guns, Lieut. John H. Russell; Kineo, two guns, Lieut. George M. Ransom; Pinola, two guns, Lieut. Pierce Crosby; Sciota, two guns, Lieut. Edward Donaldson; Winona, two guns, Lieut. Edward T. Nichols; Wissahickon, two guns, Lieutenant Albert N. Smith.
Of the guns on this squadron ninety-three could be fired in broadside, but none could be fired directly ahead; the pivots, however, could be fired within a point or two of the line of the keel, and were practically bow guns. More than half these guns were nine-inch smooth-bores or better.
In addition to these ships, there were twenty schooners carrying one thirteen-inch mortar each, and six gunboats (among them three ferryboats), carrying heavy guns, were assigned to handle and protect them. The mortar flotilla was placed under Porter.
It was an easy matter to get the gunboats up the river, but the big ships stuck on the bar. The Pensacola had to unload all of her guns as well as other weights before she could pass, and even then her bottom cut the channel a foot deeper when she was dragged through on April 7th, and the Mississippi had a like experience. An attempt made to drag the Colorado over failed altogether; but the attempt had to be made in order to please the officials at Washington, even though two weeks of precious time were wasted.
However, Capt. Theodorus Bailey and nearly all of the crew of the Colorado were taken along if the ship was left behind, and on reaching the head of the Passes the work of preparing the ships for the task before them began.
Thirteen-inch Mortar from Farragut’s Fleet.
From a photograph made at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
Howitzers were placed in the tops (i.e., on platforms at the tops of the lower masts), and there protected by boiler iron from musket fire. Each ship was made to draw more water forward than aft so that she would have a better chance to get off in case of grounding. As the ships were to fight at point-blank range care was taken to secure the guns so their elevation should not increase under the shock of firing. The rigging was stripped down to the topmasts, and the spars, etc., sent ashore, while some of the gunboats took their masts out altogether. Chain cables were secured up and down the sides of the ship to ward off shot, and “bags of coal or sand or ashes, or whatever else came to hand,” were piled to keep the shot from the boilers and engines. Nets were hung inside to stop the flying splinters in case of shot piercing the wooden walls. Decks and gun carriages were whitewashed to help the light for the night battle, and the outsides of the ships were smeared with mud to make them less easily visible.