Farragut on the Mississippi

J. T. HEADLEY.

The rapid series of successes won by the armies of the West in early 1862, which gave them the full control of the Mississippi as far south as Memphis, was paralleled by as important a victory on the lower section of the river, which caused the fall of New Orleans, and left only the section of the river between that city and Memphis to be opened and occupied. The achievement in question was accomplished by the navy, and constituted one of the most brilliant and striking events of the war. Preceding a description of it, some brief review of the general operations of the navy is desirable.

In August, 1861, an expedition was sent to Hatteras Inlet, by which Fort Hatteras was captured. In November of the same year a powerful land and naval force was sent to the coast of South Carolina. This assailed Port Royal Harbor, forced the surrender of the forts, and captured the post. It proved an important conquest, from its giving the North a convenient naval depot on the Southern coast, and the control of the richly-fertile Sea-Island district. Fort Pulaski, one of the defences of Savannah, was also captured, and that city closely blockaded, while several coast cities in Florida were occupied. About the same time the English mail-steamer Trent was overhauled by Captain Wilkes of the sloop-of-war San Jacinto, and Mason and Slidell, two Confederate commissioners to Europe, were forcibly taken from her. This unwarranted affair, which was at first sustained by the government, caused danger of war between the United States and England, which was avoided by a somewhat ungracefully performed acknowledgment of error and surrender of the prisoners. The United States was clearly in the wrong, but circumstances rendered it difficult to admit it immediately, in face of the enthusiastic popular indorsement of the action.

In March, 1862, the port of New-Berne, in North Carolina, was captured by the fleet, and in April Fort Macon, commanding the entrance to Beaufort harbor, was taken. Roanoke Island was also occupied. These successes gave control of the whole coast of North Carolina, and aided greatly in making the blockade effective. The next naval operation was directed against the lower Mississippi, with the eventual object of the capture of New Orleans. Vigorous efforts had been made by the Confederates to render this stream impassable, by the erection of strong forts and batteries, the arming of gunboats, and the building of iron-clad vessels, which were to be superior in strength to the Merrimack. Two large steam-ships of this class were being prepared, of about fourteen hundred tons each, to be strongly plated, and each mounted with twenty of the heaviest guns. One only of these, the Louisiana, was completed in time to take part in the subsequent battle. Powerful rams and fire-rafts were also prepared, while the navigation of the river was obstructed by six heavy chains, carried across the stream on a line of dismasted schooners. This was placed about a mile below the forts. The story of the succeeding events, which partly negatived the lesson taught by the exploits of the Merrimack, and proved that wooden vessels might, under certain circumstances, successfully encounter iron-plated ones, is told with much vividness of description in Headley's "Civil War in America."]

THE month of April closed gloriously for the national cause in the Valley of the Mississippi; for it gave us New Orleans, the most important city of the Southern Confederacy, and thus made certain to us the final possession of the entire river.

Captain Farragut, with a fleet of gunboats, and Porter, with a mortar-fleet, had long since left our Northern waters for some unknown point. Much anxiety had been felt for its success; and when at length news was received that it had left Ship Island, where it was known to have rendez-voused, for New Orleans, accompanied by a land-force under Butler, great fears were entertained of its ability to force the formidable barriers that blocked the river below the city.

Two forts, Jackson and St. Philip, nearly opposite each other, the former very strong and casemated, the two mounting in all two hundred and twenty-five guns, commanded the approach. In addition to these, a heavy chain had been stretched across the channel, buoyed upon schooners, and directly under the fire of the batteries, so that any vessels attempting to remove it could be sunk. There were, besides, heavily-mounted iron-clad gunboats, ponderous rams, before whose onset the strongest ship would go down, and fire-rafts and piles of drift-wood, ready to be launched on our advancing vessels. It was believed by the rebels that nothing that ever floated could safely pass all these obstructions; but should some few by a miracle succeed, bands of young men were organized in New Orleans to board them at all hazard and capture them.

Such were the obstacles that presented themselves to Farragut and Porter as they, in the middle of April, slowly steamed up the mighty river.

It was laborious work getting the fleet over the bars at the mouth of the Mississippi, and up the rapid stream, to the scene of action, for the mortar-boats were not steamers. Weeks were occupied in it, and the North almost began to despair of hearing any good report of the expedition, and eventually it was quite lost sight of in the absorbing news from the upper Mississippi and the Tennessee. But, though shut out from the world, its gallant commanders were quietly but energetically preparing for the herculean task assigned them.