At this time the United States navy was undergoing transformation. In the more important vessels steam had been substituted for sail power, but they were still constructed of wood, and the development of the ironclad was just beginning. In the emergency the Government bought a large number of merchant vessels of various kinds, including some ferryboats, turning them into gunboats and transports, and began the construction of ironclads. Many ironclads of light draught for use on the western rivers were built in a hundred days. The Southerners were almost without facilities for building vessels from the keel, but they made two or three formidable rams and floating batteries by covering the wooden hulls of some of the captured ships with railroad iron.
The first naval expedition of the war sailed in August, 1861, commanded by Flag-Officer Silas H. Stringham. It consisted of ten vessels, including two transports, carried about nine hundred soldiers, and was directed against the forts that guarded Hatteras Inlet, North Carolina. The troops, with some difficulty, were landed through the surf, and a combined attack by them and the naval force reduced the defenses and compelled their surrender with about seven hundred prisoners. The garrisons had lost about fifty men, the assailants not one. This was due to the fact that the work was done chiefly by rifled guns on the vessels, which could be fired effectively while out of range of the smooth-bore guns of the forts.
Late in October another expedition, commanded by Flag-Officer Samuel F. Du Pont, sailed from Hampton Roads. It consisted of more than fifty vessels, and carried twenty-two thousand men. A terrific gale was encountered, one transport and one storeship were lost, and one gunboat had to throw its battery overboard. When the storm was over, only one vessel was in sight from the flagship. But the scattered fleet slowly came together again and proceeded to its destination—the entrance to Port Royal harbor, South Carolina. This was guarded by two forts. The attack was made on the morning of November 7th. The main column, of ten vessels, led by the flagship, was formed in line a ship's-length apart, and steamed past the larger fort, delivering its fire at a distance of eight hundred yards, and then turned and sailed past again, somewhat closer. In this manner it steamed three times round a long ellipse, delivering its fire alternately from the two broadsides. Some of the gunboats got positions from which they enfiladed the work, and two of the larger vessels went up closer and poured in a fire that dismounted several guns. This was more than the garrison could endure, and they evacuated the fort and were seen streaming out of it as if in panic. The other column, of four vessels, attacked the smaller fort in the same manner, with the same result.
Meanwhile, a much larger and more important naval expedition than either of these was planned at Washington. New Orleans was the largest and richest city in the Confederacy. It had nearly one hundred and seventy thousand inhabitants—more than Charleston, Mobile, and Richmond together. In the year before the war it had shipped twenty-five million dollars' worth of sugar and ninety-two million dollars' worth of cotton. In these two articles its export trade was larger than that of any other city in the world. And as a strategic point it was of the first importance. The Mississippi has several mouths, or passes, and this fact, with the frequency of violent gales in the Gulf, made it very difficult to blockade commerce there. Moreover, if possession of the Mississippi could be secured by the national forces it would cut the Confederacy in two and render it difficult if not impossible to continue the transportation of supplies from Arkansas and Texas to feed the armies in Virginia and Tennessee. Add to this the fact that any great city is a great prize in war, highly valuable to the belligerent that holds it, and the importance of New Orleans at that time may be readily appreciated.
The defenses of the city consisted of two forts—Jackson and St. Philip—on either bank of the stream, thirty miles above the head of the passes and about twice that distance below New Orleans. They were below a bend which had received the name of English Turn, from the circumstance that in 1814 the British naval vessels attempting to ascend the stream had here been driven back by land batteries. The forts were built by the United States Government, of earth and brick, in the style that was common before the introduction of rifled cannon. They were now garrisoned by fifteen hundred Confederate soldiers, and above them lay a Confederate fleet of fifteen vessels, including an ironclad ram and an incomplete floating battery that was cased in railroad iron. Below the forts a heavy chain was stretched across the river, supported on logs; and when it was broken by a freshet the logs were replaced by hulks anchored at intervals across the stream, with the chain passing over their decks and its ends fastened to trees on the banks. A similar chain was stretched across the Hudson at the time of the Revolutionary War. In addition to all this, two hundred Confederate sharpshooters constantly patrolled the banks between the forts and the head of the passes, to give notice of any approaching foe, and fire at any one that might be seen on the deck of a hostile vessel. The Confederate authorities fully appreciated the value of the Crescent City. The problem before the national authorities was, how to take that city in spite of all these barriers.
CHAPTER VII.
THE FIGHT FOR NEW ORLEANS.