The Battle of New Orleans.
From a painting by Admiral Walke.
Of the whole Confederate squadron only the Louisiana, the McRae, and the guerrilla Defiance remained, and they were under the guns of Fort St. Philip. The Defiance had been abandoned, but men from the McRae took possession of her. The Louisiana, even as a floating battery, did nothing but fire a broadside or two at the passing squadron.
Confederate Ironclad Ram Stonewall Jackson.
From a photograph.
The river was clear, save for two batteries of no account, as far as New Orleans, and at 1 o’clock in the afternoon, on April 25, 1862, the triumphant government squadron was before the Crescent City. It had lost only thirty-five killed and 128 wounded.
But two or three incidents of the occupation of the city need be mentioned. Captain Bailey and Lieut. George H. Perkins were sent ashore to demand that the mayor haul down the Confederate flags. A howling mob surrounded and insulted and even threw filth upon the two lone officers, who were simply obeying orders. The letter of Farragut was delivered to Mayor Monroe in the presence of Pierre Soulé, who had been a senator and a minister to Spain. Primed by Soulé, the mayor wrote a letter filled with such expressions as “you have a gallant people to administer”; “sensitive to all that can affect its dignity and self-respect”; “order and peace may be preserved without resort to measures which could not fail to wound their susceptibilities and fire up their passions”; “you may trust their honor, though you might not count on their submission to unmerited wrong.” As to the Confederate flags, “nor could I find in my entire constituency so wretched and desperate a renegade as would dare to profane with his hand the sacred emblem of our aspirations.”
The flags came down, however, and the old flag was raised over the Mint. A gambler named Mumford, with three associates, hauled it down, dragged it in the streets, and tore it to pieces. It was a wild town until May 1st, and even for a few days later; but on May 1st came Benjamin F. Butler with his troops from the transports that had accompanied the Union warships, and Butler was the man for the place. If any reader wants to learn how to tame a mob with superabundant “sensibilities” and “passions” and “aspirations” and “honor” mixed in the jumble exhibited by Pierre Soulé and Mayor Monroe, let him read “Butler’s Book.”
To return to Forts St. Philip and Jackson, it must be said that with the government forces above and below them, they were in such a desperate strait that when Porter threatened to renew the bombardment, more than half the garrison mutinied. Most of them were foreigners, anyway. The forts were surrendered to Porter on April 28, 1862. While Porter was opposite Fort Jackson negotiating for the surrender, under a flag of truce hoisted on the fort and on his flagship, Commander John K. Mitchell, of the ironclad Louisiana, set her on fire, and she came drifting down upon the Union squadron lying under the flag of truce. Fortunately, she blew up just before she arrived where she could do any damage. Some Confederate writers like Scharf assert that Mitchell had a perfect right to destroy her, because she was not included in the surrender. This is correct. But when they say Mitchell “took caution that no injury should fall to the enemy’s fleet while under the flag of truce,” they assert somewhat more than the facts warrant, for Mitchell left the ship moored by ropes that he knew would burn off before the fire reached the magazine, and they admit that he did not draw the charges from her heavy guns. They say that he tried to “drown the magazine” and failed, and that he then sent an officer to warn Porter. The officer was sent, but he was sent so long after the fire was started that she blew up before he reached Porter’s ship. Moreover, before the passing of the fleet the Louisiana was moored far up the stream, against the protest of the military authorities, instead of down below, where she could have driven off Porter’s mortars. The Confederate heroes of the fight were Sherman, Kennon, and Huger. Every American thinks of their bravery and skill with pleasure, but Mitchell was another kind of a man.