Lincoln's Admiral

by James P. Duffy

  The men on the shore were foreigners, mostly Germans. They had been coerced into the Confederate service and had little heart for fighting the Yankees. Their commander, Colonel Ignatius Szymanski, readily came aboard the gunboat with several other officers and surrendered. Perkins wrote later how odd it was to see “a regiment on shore surrendering to a ship.” Colonel Szymanski later said he had little choice since there was no possibility his troops could escape the murderous guns of the Cayuga, and he could not return the fire with any effect. “I thought it my duty to surrender.” Later in the day, Farragut paroled the colonel and most of the regiment’s troops, allowing them to return to New Orleans.

  At 7:00 a.m., just five hours after the signal to begin running past the forts had been given, the vessels that had succeeded in this task were anchored at Quarantine Point, seven miles upriver from Fort St. Philip. All but one vessel, the Varuna, had survived the battle. Thirteen of the seventeen ships that had set out to run the forts dropped anchor at the point. The three other missing gunboats, Kennebec, Itasca, and Winona, which the flag officer at first thought had been lost, had been forced to turn back. As ships reported their condition to the Hartford, it was discovered that Mr. Osbon’s prediction concerning casualties was actually an overestimate. The final figure was stunningly low, considering the number of guns fired during the battle and the confined area in which it took place. Of the roughly 4,000 men aboard Farragut’s ships, thirty-seven were killed, and 146 wounded. With his squadron around him, cheering his great feat, Flag Officer David Farragut began immediately to plan for his conquest of New Orleans.

  THE UNION FLEET anchored off Quarantine Point for the remainder of the day. Hundreds of flags and banners flew from every ship in celebration of the victory, and cheers welcomed the flag officer each time he appeared on the Hartford’s deck. Details of sailors were formed for the somber duty of taking the dead ashore and burying them. Blood-spattered decks were washed, and minor repairs were made to the ships and gunboats. Farragut, following his custom, visited his ships, congratulating the officers and men. On each vessel were echoed the heartfelt cheers of his squadron for having successfully brought them through an engagement that most had believed would result in their own deaths.

  Of the big ships, the Hartford had been hit eighteen times by enemy shells but had suffered little lasting damage other than the disabling of two of her guns. The Pensacola had been struck nine times, the Mississippi eleven, the Richmond thirteen, and the Brooklyn sixteen. But because none of the shots had struck below the waterline, the ships were in no danger of sinking.

  Downriver, the Confederate forts had also suffered only light casualties. Fort Jackson had thirty-three wounded, and nine killed, and Fort St. Philip lost two killed and had four wounded. The rebel riverboats suffered more, with about seventy-five dead and thirty-five wounded. Considering the number of shells fired and the close proximity of the opposing forces, the loss of so few men is amazing. It is even more surprising when we read Farragut’s description of the battle scene in a letter he wrote home several days later: “It was one of the most awful sights and events I ever saw or experienced. The smoke was so dense that it was only now and then you could see anything but the flash of the cannon.”

  One Confederate loss that affected Farragut personally was the fatal wounding of the commander of the Louisiana, Commander Charles F. McIntosh. The two had become close friends years earlier while serving at Norfolk. The ironclad’s executive officer, John Wilkinson, had also served with Farragut years before, and later wrote that the Confederate naval officers stationed below New Orleans expected from the beginning that “Farragut would dare” to make a run past the forts to attack New Orleans.

  Having watched the battle from below the forts, General Butler sent a message of congratulations to Farragut: “Allow me to congratulate you and your command upon the bold, daring, brilliant and successful passage of the forts by the fleet this morning.” Butler was anxious to get his forces into action, for fear the glory that would come with the now imminent capture of New Orleans would fall entirely to the navy.

  Satisfied that his fleet was functioning in proper order, Farragut proceeded with his plans to capture New Orleans. He sent Captain Boggs, formerly of the Varuna, in an open boat through the bayous, circling around the rear of Fort St. Philip with communiqués for both Porter and Butler. To Porter, whom he thanked for the support provided by the mortar boats, he explained that he planned to continue upriver “and push for New Orleans and then come down and attend to the forts; so you hold them in status quo until I get back.” He suggested that Porter demand the surrender of the forts, explaining that he had cut the telegraph wires leading to the city, leaving them without communications.

  Farragut suggested through his emissary, Boggs, that General Butler load his troops into small boats and move them around the back of Fort St. Philip and proceed to Quarantine Point. From there he could use several of Farragut’s gunboats to move some of his men across the river, and sequester the forts more effectively from New Orleans, their source of intelligence and supplies. Surrounded by Union troops and facing additional mortar attacks, he reasoned that the garrisons of the forts might then be convinced to surrender.

  Porter, whose position below the forts with his mortar and gunboat fleet precluded him from participating in the capture of New Orleans, was greatly displeased by Farragut’s decision to proceed upriver without first capturing the forts. He was also upset about being left behind. Butler, too, was disturbed about Farragut’s leaving the forts in enemy hands. Neither appeared to agree with the flag officer’s assessment that the forts were of little real value to the enemy once isolated from New Orleans. To Farragut, the target was New Orleans, and such peripheral objectives as the river forts could more easily be dealt with once New Orleans was in Federal hands. General Butler felt that Farragut had left him with the “most troublesome, annoying and anxious business of the campaign.” Like Porter, he was also displeased at being left behind while the fleet moved north to New Orleans without him or his troops.

  Borrowing one of Porter’s gunboats, the Miami, Butler returned downriver to his waiting transports. He took the troops of the Twenty-sixth Massachusetts back out through Pass à L’Outre and up the coast to a place east of Fort St. Philip, where they entered Manuels Canal, a large bayou that led toward the rear of the fort. Butler was intent on attacking and capturing the fort. When the waterway became too shallow, the soldiers were transferred to light-draft boats, then eventually were forced to march nearly two miles through the swampy countryside. The soldiers found the going rough as they struggled through what at times was almost waist-deep mud and water. Meanwhile, Farragut had weighed anchor and steamed north, leaving behind the gunboats Kineo and Wissahickon to support Butler’s force. When General Butler and his troops finally arrived at Quarantine Point, he followed Farragut’s suggestion, and used the two gunboats to transport units of his command across the river to effectively isolate Fort Jackson as well as Fort St. Philip.

  The Federal fleet started north shortly after dawn on the morning of April 25, 1862. Upriver, the city of New Orleans was in a panic. The sailors and marines aboard Farragut’s ships witnessed the result of that panic, as dozens of cotton-laden burning vessels, including large ships, swept past them, carried along by the river’s current. Mobs at the city’s wharfs had torched the cotton and pushed the ships into the stream, hoping to halt the progress of the enemy fleet.

  Until the forts had been passed, the mood in New Orleans had been one of subdued confidence. The people had been assured that Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip could prevent the enemy fleet from reaching the city. Their confidence had been shaken during Porter’s mortar assaults on the forts, when on clear nights they could hear the explosions of the Union shells. Despite this, New Orleans’s population remained cautiously optimistic that the Union fleet would be defeated. This optimism was buoyed by the local newspapers, especially the Crescent and the Daily True Delta,
both early and vigorous supporters of secession.

  The Crescent had proclaimed that neither the forts nor the city could be captured. The very morning that the fleet was passing the forts, the Daily True Delta had published a portion of a dispatch from General Duncan to General Lovell, in which he boasted, “We can stand it [the bombardment], with God’s blessing, as long as they can.” While this may have cheered the hearts of early-morning readers, rumors that Federal gunboats were north of the forts changed the mood quickly. The rumors had been confirmed by the pealing of church bells at nine-thirty on the morning of April 24. Throughout the city, people stopped to count the number of tolls from each church steeple. By the time they reached twelve rings, the alarm signal instructing all soldiers and militiamen to report to their armories immediately, everyone knew the rumors must be true.

  By the next morning, as Farragut’s ships steamed north of Quarantine Point, the citizens of New Orleans knew their city was doomed to be captured. Louisiana Governor Thomas O. Moore, a powerful secessionist leader, realized the imminent surrender of New Orleans meant that the capital, Baton Rouge, would inevitably fall into Union hands. He issued orders that morning that all cotton stores within the area facing Federal occupation be either removed or destroyed. Those planters with transportation hauled their cotton into the interior, as far from the danger as possible. Those unable to remove their cotton, which for most represented the basis of their wealth, ordered their slaves to split open the thousands of bales stacked on the city’s wharves and splash them with whiskey, which was also to be kept from the enemy’s hands. The slaves then pushed the bales off the docks into the river and used burning pine knots to set the cotton ablaze. Thousands of bales of flaming cotton drifted downriver. Most were caught in eddies along the riverbanks and drifted harmlessly against the shore, where they burned themselves out. Those succeeding in gaining the center of the stream were destroyed by their own flames before they reached the Federal ships.

  At New Orleans, the destruction of valuable equipment and supplies being carried out by state officials at the governor’s order cracked the thin veneer of hope that the city would be saved from capture. Crowds broke into warehouses and boarded ships, carrying away bacon, rice, sugar, corn, and any other foodstuffs they could find. Cotton bales stacked on the wharves were set ablaze by enraged mobs who took out their frustrations on anything they could find. The mobs turned even more violent as word spread that General Lovell had decided not to defend New Orleans against the Federal ships that were even then steaming toward the city.

  General Lovell recognized that the city could not be defended and any attempt to do so would subject New Orleans to the devastating fire of the enemy’s warships. The river had risen to such a level that when the Union ships came alongside the wharves, their guns would be so high they would easily dominate the entire city. Lovell had hoped to be able to put up a staunch defense against a land invasion by Butler, but his men were poorly armed, most having nothing but old shotguns or obsolete muskets. These were not the proper weapons to use against oceangoing warships or well-armed infantry and cavalry. Lovell met with New Orleans mayor John T. Monroe and other city officials and told them of the hopelessness of resistance against Farragut’s fleet. For years afterward, Lovell suffered abuse for his decision not to defend New Orleans, even after military experts from both sides found it to have been a reasonable decision that, in fact, probably saved the city from destruction.

  Lovell sent detachments of troops into the commercial section of the city along the wharves to try to stop the violence and restore order. However, by then the wholesale pillaging had become so widespread and involved so many people - especially those from the poorer neighborhoods - that he gave up the attempt. Instead, the military commander of New Orleans concentrated on extracting military supplies from Confederate government warehouses. All Confederate troops and state militia, except for some foreign units, were ordered to march to the Jackson railroad station. At the station, every available freight and passenger rail car was pushed into service. The few working locomotives were brought out and hitched to the cars and waited with their engines running for the order to pull out of the station.

  The area around the station was one of almost complete bedlam, except for the soldiers, who for the most part marched in silence to their appointed places on the trains. Civilians fought for the few places not already occupied by troops. Confederate soldiers were jammed inside the coaches and boxcars. Latecomers were ordered to stand on the vestibules at the ends of the cars, or sent to sit atop them. Quickly the roofs of the cars were packed with soldiers. The men on top grumbled and complained about their treatment, especially after a heavy rain began pouring down on them, leaving them soaked to the skin. Supplies and equipment rescued from the rampaging mobs were loaded into the box cars, many already crowded with troops. The crowd of civilians milling around the station in hopes of finding an escape route grew each minute as a steady, apparently endless stream, mostly of women and children, arrived.

  Upriver at Jefferson City the scenes of chaos and fleeing crowds were repeated. At the Tift Brothers’ boatyard the partially completed giant ironclad Mississippi stood in silence, abandoned by the men who had been working on her. It was on the Mississippi and her sister ship, the Louisiana, still tied to the riverbank north of Fort St. Philip, that the Confederate government had pinned its hopes for the defense of New Orleans. Until the forts had been passed by Farragut’s ships, Commodore William Whittle, Confederate naval commander of the New Orleans region, had hesitated to take jurisdiction of the ironclad. She had not yet been commissioned into the Confederate Navy, and Whittle believed he lacked the authority to do so, even though several fellow officers had urged that action on him. But now, with Federal ships steaming toward New Orleans, he feared the potentially powerful vessel might fall into enemy hands and be used against the Confederacy, and so he acted.

  Without waiting for approval from Richmond, Whittle summoned Commander Arthur Sinclair, who was waiting to take command of the vessel when she was completed. He instructed Sinclair to prepare the Mississippi for a run upriver, out of harm’s way. But this was not her fate, since the ironclad was not yet able to move under her own power. Whittle then obtained the assistance of two river steamers, the Peytona and the St. Charles. The two spent the next few hours attempting to pull and push the mighty but helpless ironclad against the river’s powerful southbound current, but failed to gain any headway. In great frustration, Sinclair tied her to a nearby dock and took the Peytona downriver to New Orleans in a fruitless search for more steamers.

  Meanwhile, the victorious Union squadron steamed upriver. From the various sugar plantations lining the riverbanks, black slaves dropped their tools and converged on the banks, shouting and waving at the ships, welcoming their liberators.

  The lead ships of the Federal fleet approached English Turn, about five miles below New Orleans, at ten-thirty in the morning. Flag Officer Farragut expected to have his squadron anchored at New Orleans before the day was over. It was just above here in 1815 that General Andrew Jackson’s riflemen, stationed behind large earthworks, had driven off an attack by seasoned British regulars with such terrible results that the battle and its site became nationally honored. Confederate army units had been assigned to virtually the same positions that Jackson’s men had occupied, with the hope of repeating Jackson’s glorious defense. The earthenwork forts had been enlarged and strengthened, and the two batteries, the Chalmette on the eastern bank and the McGehee on the western, mounted a total of thirteen thirty-two-pounders.

  Captain Bailey and the Cayuga were far out in front as the Union ships approached English Turn. Farragut had no intelligence concerning these batteries, and so did not know what to expect. As the Union gunboat approached, the batteries appeared to be deserted, encouraging Bailey to continue upriver toward New Orleans. When the Cayuga came within range of their guns, Confederate sharpshooters who had been hidden behind the earthworks rose as a
single man and opened fire. A barrage from the guns on both sides of the river followed immediately. In a matter of moments, the gunboat was struck by fourteen shots, and Bailey decided it was more prudent to fall back than to attempt to battle his way through. Once out of range, he waited for the arrival of the larger members of the fleet. The first to arrive on the scene was the Hartford, which, in the words of Flag Officer Farragut, gave the two batteries a fire “as they never dreamed of.” The Pensacola followed quickly behind the flagship, firing volley after volley at the Chalmette battery. Behind her came the Brooklyn, firing her own loads of grape and shell into the McGehee battery.

  The two batteries were manned by militia troops under the command of Brigadier General Martin L. Smith. Equipped with only a small supply of ammunition, their defense was more symbolic than actual. Neither Smith nor his men expected to halt the enemy’s advance. When they ran out of ammunition, and could do nothing but stay hidden from the terrible firing of the great ships’ guns, Smith ordered them to withdraw. The battle lasted less than twenty minutes.

  Union sailors and marines cheered as they watched the enemy gunners and riflemen flee their guns and disappear into the nearby woods. The ships of the fleet resumed their positions and continued their voyage up the river.

  At New Orleans, thousands of anxious and angry people crowded along the wharves. They listened intently as the battle at English Turn took place. When the guns stopped firing, they knew that the enemy fleet was almost within sight. All eyes were on Slaughter Point, a short distance downriver, where the Mississippi made a sharp turn. It would be there that the Union ships would first appear. Many stood with tears running down their cheeks, caused by both the impending loss of their beloved city and the pall of black smoke that hung over the entire area from the burning cotton and vessels. Suddenly the cry went up, “There they are!”