The largest city in the Confederacy, New Orleans, fell to the Union fleet commanded by Flag Officer David Glasgow Farragut just one hundred years ago this month. The event was signalized at noon on the 29th with the hoisting of the stars and stripes over the customs house. Within 48 hours, Major General Benjamin F. Butler’s army of occupation began landing, and the Queen City of the South, with its 140,000 inhabitants, was soon under Federal martial law. Not a single shot had been fired into the city from the Union warships. In the down-river fighting preliminary to this major Confederate disaster, there had been fewer than 400 casualties. The relatively bloodless victory was certainly the greatest triumph of Union arms since the outbreak of hostilities at Fort Sumter in the previous year. Yet it seems next to impossible that a great city controlling the nation’s most important river should fall to a fleet made up of a few wooden sloops of war and a dozen little gunboats. What was wrong with the Confederate defenses? Where were the defenders? How did it happen?
It is easier to ask such questions, of course, than to answer them. In general terms, however, there are two answers. In the first place, the Confederate leaders simply could not believe that their defenses would fail to stop a Union fleet trying to come up the Mississippi from the sea. Consequently, in the second place, they gave priority to the concentration of every available man and gun in a great counterattack—the Battle of Shiloh—designed to turn back the invading Union forces in the Tennessee Valley. In other words, the Confederacy was confronted by a Union offensive embracing the entire Mississippi Valley, which assumed the form of a gigantic pincers, With Grant driving down from the north and Farragut leading the naval attack from the sea. Thus it was that the Louisiana regiments that might have defended the city of New Orleans were far away to the north—caught up in the bloody debacle of Shiloh on the 6th and 7th of April, when 25,000 Americans Were casualties out of the 100,000 engaged.
Guarding the Mississippi River
Ample professional opinion, both foreign and native, supported Southern confidence in the adequacy of the defenses of New Orleans. The city appeared to be situated in an almost unassailable position to begin with. It was not at the mouth of the river, but more than a hundred miles upstream. As a study of the terrain will make clear (see map), there were no landing beaches for the World War II type of amphibious assault. Instead, swamps, shallow lakes and bayous, or flooded land interposed between the city and the route for heavy equipment, artillery in particular, that would be required for a successful attack. The British failure of 1815 attested to the difficulties confronting an offensive—and that offensive had been launched by the greatest sea power in the world, and with troops who were the victorious veterans of the Napoleonic wars.
The only feasible route over which heavy guns, large numbers of men, and their required logistic support might be conducted was the river itself, and it was there that the Confederate defenses were concentrated. Ninety miles below the city, and 20 miles above the Head of the Passes where the river enters the Gulf of Mexico through its several mouths, there is the Plaquemine Bend where the river turns to the east and then resumes its generally southeasterly course. On the south side of the bend stood Fort Jackson, a starshaped work of brick and masonry with shell guns in barbettes and casemates, as well as a water battery. Looking north and slightly upstream across the intervening 900-yard breadth of the river, one could see Fort St. Philip, a lesser work, but well placed to fire upon ships approaching from either direction. These two forts were the hard core of the defense plan. Between them they had a garrison of about 1,200 men and over a hundred guns, although not more than half that number were heavy shell guns that could match the ordnance of the Union fleet. It should be noted, however, that in contemporary estimates, guns in forts were given a value of four or five to one when compared with guns of similar size in wooden ships. All were agreed that it was virtually impossible for any combination of unarmored Union ships to reduce these forts by means of direct frontal attack.
The potential effectiveness of Forts Jackson and St. Philip was greatly increased by the construction of a barrier boom spanning the river just below them and within range of their guns. It was built of gigantic cypress logs chained together and held in position by a score or more of the heaviest ships’ anchors obtainable. A portion of this barrier had been destroyed when early spring floods brought vast quantities of debris down upon it. The breaks were closed with hulks anchored bows upstream and chained together. Additional chain that could have strengthened the boom further was diverted to an above-New Orleans obstruction being prepared to meet the rumored threat of Union ironclad gunboats coming down from the upper Mississippi.
Supplementing the forts on their upstream side was the Confederacy’s own naval power, a makeshift and peculiar conglomeration that needs some explaining, for the small fleet was divided among three different commands. First there was the Confederate States Navy, consisting of two small gunboats and a few launches, serviceable primarily for transporting personnel and carrying despatches. There was also the ironclad Manassas, a small football-shaped ram with a single bow gun, which had panicked some Union warships that ventured up to the Head of the Passes earlier in the war. These craft were to have been joined by at least two armored floating batteries. Louisiana, which somewhat resembled CSS Virginia was almost completed, the construction of the floating battery Mississippi, well under way. The two vessels would have been truly formidable had they been battle ready. Although the industrial limitations of the Confederacy unquestionably contributed to the reasons for delay in their construction, the responsibility for failure was more directly the result of cumbersome organization and the lack of a proper sense of urgency.
The second contingent of the Confederate fleet consisted of two gunboats, converted merchantmen, of the Louisiana State Navy. And the third group was the River Defense Fleet of six small gunboats, officered and crewed by local pilots and rivermen, undisciplined and unreliable. One of their captains had designed Manassas and considered himself unjustly treated by the Confederate States Navy when he was not given command of the ironclad.
To these man-made obstacles was added the navigational difficulties of the river itself with its 3- to 4-knot current, numerous bars, and eddies that could spin a ship off her course and thrust her into the bank.
The people of New Orleans, buoyed up by war fervor, the 1815 traditions of Andrew Jackson, and by contempt for the Yankee, were more immediately concerned with the drying up of the commercial life of their great city and with the military situation in the upper Mississippi than with any threat from the sea. Only the commanding officer, Major General Mansfield Lovell, Confederate States Army, and his staff fully realized the deficiency of their defenses. He had but one company of regular troops, all others having been ordered north in March to form part of Beauregard’s army. Within the city of New Orleans, there were just 3,000 elderly homeguards, armed with old muskets and shotguns. The solitary defenses between the city and the forts were the weak batteries at English Turn. It was perfectly clear to General Lovell that the city itself was defenseless and that the battle for New Orleans would be fought—and won or lost—at Forts Jack- son and St. Philip.
Union Preparations
The inception of the New Orleans campaign, in Mahan’s opinion, lay with Gustavus Fox, the ex-naval officer who was a kind of civilian Chief of Naval Operations under Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles during the war. Fox conceived of the attack as a “run- by” of the forts, with their subsequent fall inevitable since they were entirely dependent upon New Orleans itself for all support. Commander David Dixon Porter, U. S. Navy, a close friend of Fox, worked hard to help gain official acceptance for the project and contributed the idea of a fleet of mortar boats for softening up the forts. It is known that Lincoln felt that mortars as a tool of war were not properly appreciated and he may have been favorably influenced towards approval of the expedition because of Porter’s suggestion. At any rate, a mortar flotilla was incorporated into the plan, and Porter was given command of it. He was also sent to New York to sound out Captain David Glasgow Farragut. At the time, Farragut was in his 61st year. A veteran of the War of 1812 (he had served as a midshipman under David Dixon Porter’s father in the frigate Essex), he was a Southerner by birth and family connection, and had been a resident of Norfolk, Virginia, at the outbreak of the Civil War. The promptness with which he had removed with his family to New York had attracted Fox’s favorable attention. There was no question in Farragut’s mind where his allegiance lay. Fox wondered, however, whether he would heartily support the concept of the New Orleans campaign. A few days after Porter’s favorable report, Farragut was ordered to Washington where, upon arrival, he breakfasted with Fox and the latter’s brother-in-law, Postmaster General Montgomery Blair. “After breakfast, Fox laid before Farragut the plan of the attack, the force to be employed, and the object to be attained,” Blair recorded, “and asked his opinion. Farragut answered Unhesitatingly that it would succeed.” Like Fox, Farragut considered the mortar flotilla Unnecessary but worth giving a try. In his opinion, which he had gained from observation of the French fleet’s attack in 1838 on the castle of San Juan de Ulloa guarding Vera Cruz, Mexico, the horizontal fire of the shell guns was much more effective than the high trajectory fire of mortars. From the very first, he conceived of the attack as a run-by of the forts, with celerity in the execution of the entire campaign, so that the Confederacy could not further strengthen its defenses for lack of time.
On 9 January 1862, Farragut was designated flag officer of the Western Gulf Blockading Squadron with USS Hartford as his flagship. Before the end of the month, he had received his orders for the campaign and proceeded to carry them out in a straightforward, logical fashion. First, he assembled his forces at an advance base, Ship Island, which had been evacuated by Confederate forces and lay conveniently between New Orleans and Mobile (see map). Next came the arduous task of working the ships over the bar at the mouth of the Mississippi. After efforts that fully justify the epithet Herculean, the entire fleet was at the Head of the Passes except for Colorado, the ship with the greatest draft of all, and though she had to be left behind, most of her guns were added to the armament of those that made the attack. By 16 April, Farragut’s forces were deployed according to plan and the mortar flotilla commenced bombardment of the forts at a range of approximately 3,000 yards.
The “striking force,” as we should call it today, of the Union fleet under Farragut’s direct command consisted of four first-rate sloops of war and the old sidewheeler Mississippi, which had been with Perry at the opening of Japan. All were sailing ships built of wood, unarmored, with auxiliary steam power, but at the same time they were staunch, seagoing vessels, manned by thoroughly competent officers and trained crews. The almost new sloops of war, Hartford, Brooklyn, Richmond, and Pensacola, carried broadside batteries of ten or more 9-inch Dahlgren smooth-bore guns that fired a 70- pound shell. There were also a dozen gunboats, less seaworthy, but handier than the large ships on the river, and usually armed with an 11-inch Dahlgren pivot gun forward. They fell into two classes of slightly different size and power, details of no real significance in the ensuing action.
The “bombardment force” was Porter’s mortar flotilla consisting of seven gunboats and 19 schooners. These latter had been purchased and reinforced specifically to carry a single 13-inch mortar (plus minor secondary armament). After losing one to enemy fire the first day, when some had been stationed out in the river in order to bring Fort St. Philip into range, it was found best to anchor them out of sight along shore under the bend below Fort Jackson (see map), where they could arch their shells over the woods into the stronger of the Confederate positions. In the meantime, General Butler and his 6,000 Yankees (they were all New Englanders in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Vermont regiments) waited at Ship Island until they could come in through Quarantine Bayou above Fort St. Philip and cross over to the bank of the river whence the fleet would transport them up to the city.
Passing the Forts
“We commenced the bombardment of Fort Jackson on the 16th,” Farragut reported to the Secretary of the Navy. “On the first day the citadel was set on fire and burned until 2 o’clock the next morning. On the 17th we made but little apparent impression on the fort. On the 18th we dismounted one of their heavy columbiads and otherwise appeared to damage them. . . . On the 19th a deserter came to us from the fort and gave the information that I have stated above and much other information in relation to the armament of the forts and their general condition.”
The bombardment was more impressive than effective. All night long the big shells could be traced by their pinwheeling fuses as they arched against the dark sky, and the rate of fire was increased during daylight hours until over 16,000 shells had been lobbed at the Confederates. Farragut was deeply concerned with the possibility that the Confederate ironclad floating batteries might soon be added to the defenses and that the mortar flotilla in the meantime could not achieve any decisive results. “The flag officer, after having heard all the opinions expressed by the different commanders, is of the opinion that whatever is to be done will have to be done quickly,” he stated in his general order of 20 April, foreseeing that otherwise “we will again be reduced to a blockading squadron without the means of carrying on the bombardment, as we have expended nearly all the shell and fuzes and material for making cartridges.”
That same day, 20 April, the Confederates began moving Louisiana down to the forts. Although she could not navigate under her own power, 50 mechanics were hard at work aboard her. During the next few days, while Farragut delayed at Porter’s request to give the mortar boats a final chance, each side sensed that the hour of trial was rapidly approaching. The Confederate commander of the forts urged the captain of Louisiana to move his ship down near the boom and stated flatly that there might be no tomorrow for New Orleans when a 24-hour delay in the ship’s movement was announced. Final preparations on the part of the Union forces included opening a passage through the boom and making each ship battle ready. Working at night, the gunboats with surprising ease succeeded in breaking the barrier and making a narrow but adequate passage for the ships. The failure of the Confederate gunboats to interfere with that operation presaged the subsequent course of action.
At 2 A.M. on 24 April, Farragut had two red lights hoisted as the signal for getting under way. The mortar boats increased their bombardment while the ships formed up in three divisions. The leader was Captain Theodorus Bailey with his flag in the gunboat Cayuga, followed by Pensacola, Mississippi, and five more gunboats. Farragut led the center division in Hartford, followed by Brooklyn and Richmond. The third division consisted of the six remaining gunboats led by Captain H. H. Bell. In the darkness, it took over an hour for the fleet to form up and for its leaders to reach the boom, where the narrowness of the opening determined that the run-by would have to be attempted in single column.
All observers are unanimous in reporting the awful splendor of the scene, the flashes of the guns, the clouds of obscuring smoke, the uncertainty and confusion, the closeness of the action. Each ship had her share of adventures. Harford, for example, was exchanging heavy fire with Fort Jackson by 3:55, but 20 minutes later she had grounded on a shoal near Fort St. Philip while trying to avoid a fire-raft that a tug had pushed against her. Flames mounted half-way to the tops and for a moment Farragut feared that it was all up. At that very time the ship continued hotly exchanging shot with Fort St. Philip. The fire was extinguished, she was backed off the shoal, and within another half hour was beyond the range of the forts. She had had only three men killed and ten wounded. The last three gunboats, delayed until almost dawn in their efforts to get through the debris at the boom, had been forced to turn back; otherwise the entire fleet had passed successfully, suffering a total of about 200 casualties, half of these concentrated in Brooklyn, Pensacola, and the gunboat Iroquois. The River Defense Fleet had turned tail and steamed for New Orleans, or their crews had escaped after the ships were run up on the bank and burned. Manassas was fought hard but with little effect and finally beached herself to avoid the attack of the heavier Union ships. Governor Moore of the Louisiana State Navy covered herself with glory under the command of a former U. S. naval officer. She accounted for the single Federal ship lost in the action, the gunboat Varuna, although she had to fire her bow gun through her own bow to get at her enemy. Badly shot up, she was beached and set afire to prevent her capture. Only the gunboat McRae of the Confederate States Navy managed to enter the battle actively and survive. She was responsible for Iroquois' heavy casualties and having pursued the Union gunboats upstream, she managed to escape the heavy units and return to the relative sanctuary of the forts. The stationary ironclad Louisiana could only fire at targets of opportunity as they presented themselves. A dozen men had been killed in the forts and 40 wounded.
After burying their dead ashore and taking care of their wounded, the Union ships continued up the river in a mopping-up operation. The quarantine station had been occupied, the Confederate forces surrendering to Captain Bailey in Cayuga, who reported, “In the gray of the morning discovered a camp with rebel flag flying. Opened with canister. At 5 a.m. received the sword and flag of Colonel Szymanski and his command of five companies, arms, and camp equipage.” That night while the Union fleet lay quietly at anchor 15 miles below the city, “fear, wrath, and a sense of betrayal” ran through the citizens of New Orleans. Hundreds of bales of cotton and anything else that might be of value to the Union were put to the torch. Mobs roamed the streets. Family valuables were secreted away.
The next morning at 4:30 the Union fleet got under way, quickly silenced the weak Chalmette batteries at English Turn, and steamed through smoldering debris and past the drifting hulk of the never-to-be-completed Mississippi, all aflame, until by noon their guns bore on the panic-stricken city. “The crowds on the levee howled and screamed with rage,” wrote George W. Cable, who as a boy was a spectator of the event. “The swarming deck answered never a word; but one old tar on the Hartford, standing with lanyard in hand beside a great pivot-gun, so plain to view that you could see him smile, silently patted its big black breech and blandly grinned. And now the rain came down in sheets.”
The Quiet After the Storm
Farragut arrived off New Orleans on 25 April; General Butler’s troops did not occupy the city until 1 May. These intervening days were filled with tension.
Down at the forts, Commander Porter was apprehensive of what Louisiana might do to his force, of what the forts might do to Farragut if the flag officer had to return. He did not share Farragut’s sense of victory. As directed, he sent a flag of truce up to the forts and demanded their surrender but was not surprised when this was “politely declined,” to use his own words. At the same time, the garrison within Fort Jackson realized keenly that they were cut off from the city and that their very reason for resistance had ceased to exist. Despite the best efforts of their officers, the men mutinied, an act which convinced the force at Fort St. Philip that further fighting on their part would be pointless. By the 27th, units of the mortar fleet had arrived at the rear of Fort Jackson, and Union troops were being landed at Quarantine above Fort St. Philip. That night, the Confederate commander of the forts sent word to Porter that he wished to discuss terms of surrender. The next day, while this conference was being held in the Union gunboat Harriet Lane, the Confederate naval commander, who did not consider himself bound by his army’s action, fired Louisiana and set her adrift. By chance she exploded near Fort St. Philip, killing a man there, and throwing into consternation those aboard Harriet Lane anchored near by.
At New Orleans, General Lovell had withdrawn his small force and turned the city over to its civilian mayor. At considerable personal risk from the mobs, U. S. naval officers went ashore to begin negotiations with the mayor. Until the troops arrived, Farragut did not have the forces required to occupy the city, which was probably most fortunate. The very violence of the mob sapped its energy. Within 96 hours it was apparent to the most rabid partisan that physical resistance would have to await some more propitious time. It is indeed remarkable nonetheless that the occupation of the city was accomplished without further bloodshed.
Conclusion
In the past, students of warfare have frequently drawn false parallels with the New Orleans campaign because they did not fully comprehend its characteristic features. It was not paralleled, unsuccessfully of course, by the Dardanelles campaign of World War I, for the forts on the Mississippi could be completely cut off from logistic support and once the ships were above them, there was no serious opposition to be met with. Nor could the people of New Orleans have undertaken a kind of Stalingrad of the Civil War, because there were no military forces available to conduct such a stand. The writing of military and naval history must, of necessity, concentrate on one theater of war at a time and frequently at the cost of not seeing the over-all relationship between the various parts. The New Orleans campaign, however, clearly illustrates how the most strenuous effort to meet a threat in one quarter, the Tennessee Valley in this instance, contributed to failure in another. The Union had the wealth of resource to exploit what is known in military strategy as the “exterior position.”