Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, well manned and equipped, guarded the river on the west and east. An enormous chain, supported on anchored hulks, stretched across the half-mile of current to hold any approaching hostile vessels at a point where the fire of the forts could converge. Above the forts, a formidable flotilla of craft variously armed with rams and guns, some heaped with pitch-pine knots to serve as fire-ships, stood ready to take part.[224]
FORTS OF THE MISSISSIPPI
Unless this boom could be broken the ships could not ascend. Farragut ordered two gunboats to this dangerous task. Stealing up at night, they accomplished it. On the night of April 23d, the ships advanced, a column led by the Cayuga following the eastern bank; Farragut himself, in the Hartford, led the column which was to pass close to Fort Jackson. Now came a rare blending of the splendid and the terrible. The night was calm, with starlight and a waning moon; but in the fiercer flashings of the combat the world seemed on fire. In arcs rising far toward the zenith the shells of the mortars mounted and fell; broadsides thundered; from barbette and casemate rolled an incessant reply. Suddenly above the flashes of guns came a steady glare: fire-ships, their pitch-pine cargoes all ablaze, swept into the midst of the struggling fleet. The attacking lines became confused in the volumes of smoke settling down upon the stream. In the blinding vapor friend could scarcely be told from foe. The captain of the Confederate Governor Moore, finding that the bow of his own ship interfered with the aim of his gun, coolly blew the bow to pieces with a discharge, then through the shattered opening renewed the battle. A Confederate tug pluckily pushed a fire-raft directly upon the Hartford. The tug and its crew disappeared and the Hartford ran aground; the sailors, undaunted, stuck to their work; the ship was pulled off by her own engines, while a deluge from the pumps put out the fire. For an hour and a half the roar and the flashings continued; as the dawn came, the battle was hushed. Three Federal gunboats had been driven back and one sunk, but the main fleet was above the forts. The ships in general were scarred and battered in the night’s encounter, but little harmed, and Farragut made ready at once to go on his way.[225]
The passing of the forts made certain the fall of New Orleans. The small Confederate army under General Mansfield Lovell was at once withdrawn and the city left to its fate. Farragut appeared before it, after passing rapidly up the intervening seventy miles, at noon, April 25th. The population of one hundred and fifty thousand souls, seething with natural mortification and passion, lay under the broadsides of the fleet, and, after one outburst, in which a mob trampled on the United States flag, they sullenly submitted. With all possible expedition, the forts having given up, the land forces ascended the river and, on May 1st, took possession.[226] Farragut soon ascended the river to Vicksburg with a large part of his fleet.
SYNOPSIS OF THE PRINCIPAL EVENTS, CHIEFLY
MILITARY, BETWEEN FARRAGUT’S CAPTURE
OF NEW ORLEANS, 1862, AND THE
BATTLES OF GETTYSBURG
AND VICKSBURG, 1863
1862. Battle of Shiloh. Capture of Island No. 10. Battle of Seven Pines and Fair Oaks. “Seven Days’ Battle” between the armies of McClellan and Lee before Richmond. Repulse of the Confederates at Malvern Hill, and a constant succession of battles. Halleck appointed Federal commander-in-chief. Confederate victory at Cedar Mountain. Second battle of Bull Run and defeat of the Federals. Battle of South Mountain. Battle of Antietam Creek. Proclamation of Emancipation. The Confederate cavalry under General Stuart makes a successful raid into Pennsylvania. Burnside succeeds McClellan as commander of the Army of the Potomac. Battle of Fredericksburg and repulse of the Federals.
1863. Definite abolition of slavery in the rebellious states. Hooker commands Army of the Potomac. West Virginia admitted (by proclamation) into the Union. Confederate victory at Chancellorsville. General Grant invests Vicksburg. Lee occupies Winchester, crosses the Potomac, and enters Pennsylvania. Meade appointed commander of the Army of the Potomac. Battle of Gettysburg, July 1–3. Fall of Vicksburg, July 4th.