The United States navy had done little to distinguish itself since its wonderful achievements in the War of 1812 with Great Britain. During the Mexican War it took part in the occupation of California, and performed what service it could in the Gulf, but there was no opportunity for anything remarkable. Wilkes had made his exploring expedition in Pacific and Antarctic waters; Ingraham, in the St. Louis, had demanded and secured the release of Martin Koszta at Smyrna; Tatnall, with his famous "blood is thicker than water," had participated in the bombardment of the Chinese forts at Peiho; Hudson, in the Niagara, had assisted in laying the first Atlantic cable; and several cruisers had pursued pirates in the West Indies. But with the exception of these occurrences the navy had done nothing to attract popular attention for more than forty years. Yet it had quietly accomplished much good work on the Coast Survey; and the Naval Academy at Annapolis, from its establishment in 1845, educated officers who gave character and efficiency to the service, and when the day of battle came showed themselves to be worthy successors of the famous captains who had preceded them.
A great crisis in the nation's history was now approaching, more rapidly than any one suspected. The older statesmen were gone. Adams, Jackson, Clay, Calhoun, and Webster, all had passed away within a period of seven years. Their successors were men of different mold, and the problem that had given them the most serious trouble, while comparatively small in their day, had now grown to monstrous proportions. The difficulty arose from the existence of two exactly opposite systems of labor in the two parts of the country. In the Southern States the laborers were of a different race from the capitalists and ruling class, and were slaves; in the Northern States all (except a very small proportion) were of the white race and all were free. The different ideas and interests that arose from these two different states of society had constantly tended to alienate the people of one section from those of the other, and the frequent clashing of these interests in the halls of legislation had obscured the fact that in a much larger view, and for permanent reasons, the interests and destiny of the whole country were the same. In the summer when young Dewey was graduated at the Naval Academy, Abraham Lincoln, then in the midst of a heated canvass on this question, said in a speech that became famous: "I believe this Government can not endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved, I do not expect the house to fall, but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other." Most of the Southern statesmen, and a few of those at the North, looked to a division of the country as the best, if not the inevitable, solution of the problem. But against this there was a barrier greater and more permanent than any wording of constitution or laws enacted in the last century by a generation that had passed away. This was the geography of our country. Mr. Lincoln did not distinctly name it as the reason for his faith in the perpetuity of the Union, but he probably felt it. History shows unmistakably that the permanent boundaries of a country are the geographical ones. Conquest or diplomacy occasionally establishes others, but they do not endure. Separate tribes or peoples, if living within the same geographical boundaries, ultimately come together and form one nation. Had our country been crossed from east to west by a great river like the Amazon, or a chain of lakes like those that separate us from Canada, or a high mountain range, the northern and southern sections might never have come together, or would have been easily separated into two distinct peoples. But with no such natural line of division, and with the Mississippi running south through the center of the country, and with railroads, telegraphs, and other rapidly multiplying means of communication tying the sections together, the perpetuity of the Union was a foregone conclusion, whatever might be the arguments of the politician or the passions of the people.
Nevertheless, the struggle had to come, whether this great consideration was realized or not, and come it did. The Southern statesmen were in earnest in their threat of disunion, and when Abraham Lincoln was elected to the presidency in 1860 they proceeded to carry it out. South Carolina passed an ordinance of secession in December, and most of the other Southern States followed quickly, and the new government, called the Confederate States of America, was organized at Montgomery, Alabama, in February, 1861. They proceeded to take possession of the United States forts, arsenals, and navy yards within their territory, and soon had them all without firing a gun, except those at Pensacola and Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor. The Confederate forces erected several batteries within reach of Sumter, and on April 12th opened fire on the fort and compelled its surrender. This was the actual beginning of hostilities, and within twenty-four hours the whole country, North and South, was ablaze with the war spirit. The President called for volunteers to suppress the rebellion and restore the national authority, and was offered several times as many as he asked for. The South was already in arms. Many of the military and naval officers who were from the South went with their States, and young men who had been educated together at West Point or Annapolis were now to take part on opposite sides in one of the greatest conflicts the world has ever seen. In some instances brother was against brother, and father against son.
Gideon Welles, of Connecticut, was Secretary of the Navy in President Lincoln's cabinet. Though some of the naval officers resigned their commissions and offered their services to the Confederacy, the vessels of the navy, except a very few that were captured at Norfolk navy yard, remained in the possession of the National Government. There was need of all these and more, for a mighty task was about to be undertaken, and there were large bodies of troops to be transported by sea, cities to be captured, fortifications to be bombarded, and ports to be held under blockade. This last was a most important duty, though little idea of glory was connected with it, and popular reputations could not be made in it; for the Southern States had very few manufactures, and for arms, ammunition, and other necessaries they depended mainly on importation.
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.
Scene of the naval operations in the western rivers
Scene of the naval operations in the western rivers
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.
THE FIGHT FOR NEW ORLEANS.
THE FIGHT FOR NEW ORLEANS.
Military scholarship is a good thing; military genius is sometimes a better thing. When it was resolved by the authorities to attempt the capture of New Orleans it was assumed that the two forts on the river below the city must be first destroyed or compelled to surrender. The chief engineer of the Army of the Potomac, whose ability was unquestioned, made a long report to the Navy Department, in which, after describing the forts and their situation, he said: "To pass these works merely with a fleet and appear before New Orleans is merely a raid, no capture." And in describing the exact method of attack he said: "Those [vessels] on the Fort Jackson side would probably have to make fast to the shore; those on the Saint Philip side might anchor." Substantially the same view was afterward taken by Captain David D. Porter, who was to have an important part in the enterprise. It was also assumed that the forts could be reduced by bombardment, if this was only heavy and persistent enough. In accordance with this idea, twenty-one large mortars were cast for the work. They threw shells that were thirteen inches in diameter and weighed two hundred and eighty-five pounds. For each of these mortars a schooner was built; and so great was the concussion of the atmosphere when one was fired, that no man could stand near it without being literally deafened. Therefore platforms projecting beyond the decks were provided, to which the gunners could retreat just before each shot. The remainder of the fleet, when finally it was mustered, was made up of six sloops of war, sixteen gunboats, five other vessels, and transports carrying fifteen thousand soldiers to co-operate in the attack or hold the forts and the city after it should be captured. The number of guns in the fleet was more than two hundred.
After this expedition (the most powerful that ever had sailed under the American flag) was planned and partly organized, and the mortar schooners nearly completed, the Navy Department looked about for a suitable officer to command it, and Secretary Welles finally chose Captain David G. Farragut. This officer had his own ideas of the best way to effect the capture. He would have preferred to dispense with the mortars, in which he had no faith; but they had been prepared at great expense, and that part of the fleet was to be commanded by his friend Porter, and so he accepted them, and as soon as it could be got ready the expedition sailed from Hampton Roads.
When it arrived at the mouths of the Mississippi there was a gigantic task to be performed before the fleet could enter the stream. An American poet has thus described the delta of the great river:
There are five mouths or passes, spread out like the fingers of a hand. Of course no one of them was as large and deep as the river above, and the entrance of each was obstructed by a bar. The smaller vessels—mortar schooners and gunboats—were taken in without difficulty, but the larger ones required enormous labor to get them over the bar. The Mississippi—of which Captain Melancton Smith was the commander, and Lieutenant George Dewey the executive officer—was lightened of everything that could be taken off, and even then had to be dragged over by tugboats, with her keel a foot deep in the mud. She was the only side-wheel war vessel in the fleet. It required two weeks' labor to get the Pensacola in; and the Colorado could not be taken in at all, as she drew seven feet more of water than there was on the bar.
The masts of the mortar schooners were dressed off with bushes so that they could not be distinguished easily from the trees along the shore; and as soon as they were moored in their chosen position the bombardment was begun. The forts could not be seen from them, and the gunners fired with a computed aim, throwing the immense shells high into the air, that they might fall almost perpendicularly into the forts and explode. The bombardment was kept up steadily for six days and nights, nearly six thousand shells being thrown. They fell in and around the fortifications, destroyed buildings, cut the levee, and killed fourteen men and wounded thirty-nine. It is said that in modern warfare a man's weight in lead is fired for every man that is killed; in this instance about sixteen tons of iron were thrown for every man that was injured. The main object, however, was not to disable the garrisons, but to dismount the guns and render the fortifications useless; and this result was not accomplished. The forts and their armaments were in almost as good condition for service as ever.
Meanwhile, Farragut had made up his mind that to anchor abreast of these fortifications and attack them would simply be to lose his vessels. It is only in its ability to keep moving that a war ship (at least a wooden one, and there was not an ironclad in this fleet) has an advantage over land works of equal armament. To surrender this advantage at the beginning is to lose the fight at the end. Furthermore, he believed that as the sole purpose of the forts was to protect the city, if he could lay the city under his guns the forts would be abandoned. Consequently, in spite of the advice of the eminent army engineer and his friend and brother officer, Porter, he determined to pass the forts with his whole fleet (except the mortar schooners) and appear before New Orleans.
This was a new thing in warfare, and it is important to note it here, because George Dewey, who had been promoted to a lieutenancy at the beginning of the war, was in that fleet, and Farragut was his instructor as well as his commander.
The passage was to be made in the night, and Farragut—who had learned to perform every duty that is ever required on shipboard, except those of the surgeon—gave in his general orders minute instructions for every preparation, and suggested that the officers and crew of each vessel add any other precautions that their ingenuity might devise.
Every man in the fleet was busy. In the forecastle of the Mississippi a group of sailors were making splinter nettings, criticising the arrangements for the attack, and speculating as to the result.
"What's Bill Ammon going to do with that white paint?" said one.
"He's going to paint the gun deck," answered a comrade.
"What! paint it white?"
"Yes, white."
"What's that for? To make us a better target for the reb gunners?"
"It's to make it so that we can see what we're about, and find things when we need them."
"That seems to say we're going up in the night," said the first speaker.
"You've hit it," said another; "that's exactly what we are in for."
"Whose idea is this of painting the decks?" asked a fourth.
"Bill pretends it's his," said the boatswain's mate. "He thinks it's a great idea. But I was by when he got his orders, and I know it originated with Dewey."
"I don't care where the idea came from," said the sailmaker, "I don't admire it."
"Why not?"
"Because it's just the wrong thing. The boys on the Pensacola and the Oneida are rubbing the decks over with mud, so that the Johnnies will have a hard time to distinguish them. I think that's the true idea."
"I can't agree with you there," said the boatswain's mate. "As soon as we get fairly into it the smoke will be so thick that the Johnnies can't see through it very perfectly anyway. And that's just when we want to see everything on our own deck."
"It may be so," grumbled the sailmaker; "but if it comes to that, old Dewey'd better have the river whitewashed, so that he can see to con the ship."
This bit of sailor wit created laughter, of which the little company were in much need, for some of them were not at all hopeful of the coming contest.
"He'll con the ship all right," said another sailor, who had not spoken before, and who answered to the nickname of Slippery Sim (his real name being Simeon Nelson). "I knew him in Montpelier, and I know you can depend on him every time."
"In Montpelier?" said the boatswain's mate. "Why, that was about Bill Ammon's latitude and longitude, if my reckoning's right."
"It was, exactly," said Nelson.
"Then he ought to have known Dewey too," said the boatswain's mate.
"Know him?" said Nelson. "I should say he did know him. The most famous of all the fights that ever took place among our boys was between him and Dewey."
"Did you see it?" said the sailmaker eagerly.
"I did," said Nelson in an impressive tone. "I had the honor of holding Ammon's coat."
"And which licked?" asked the sailmaker.
"Hold on!" said the boatswain's mate. "Don't answer that question. Never spoil a good story by telling it stern foremost. Give us the whole narratyve from beginning to end, and don't let us know which licked till you get to the very last. If those two fellows were at it, I know it must have been a tug. A good description of it ought to brace us up for the lively fight that's before us."
"Yes," said another, "it may be the last story that some of us will ever hear."
"Don't be down-hearted, Ned," said the first speaker. "I've sailed with old Farragut nearly eighteen years, and I know he'll pull us through."
"I haven't any doubt that he'll pull the fleet through all right," said Ned. "But even a victorious fleet generally has a few red spots on the decks, and not so many gunners when it comes out as when it went in. It's all right, of course. I'm not finding fault, and I'm not any more afraid than I ought to be. I expect to stand up and do my duty, as I know the rest of you will. But a man can't help being a human creature, with human feelings, if heisa sailor; and when he's killed he's just as much killed, and all his pretty plans spoiled, whether it's in a victory or in a defeat."
"That's all true enough, Ned," said the boatswain's mate; "but what we want to cultivate just now is the spirit of fight, not the spirit of philosophy. Save your philosophy till after the battle, and then you'll have plenty of good company, for then everybody will be philosophizing about it."
"They will, indeed," said the sailmaker, "and a good many of them will be telling how they could have managed it better that we did. The great trouble in this war is that so many of our best generals and admirals who ought to be in the field or on shipboard have jobs in barber shops that they don't like to give up, or can't be spared from country stores and newspaper offices."
"Oh, belay your sarcasm," said the boatswain's mate. "Let's have the story of the big fight between Dewey and Ammon, Sim."
Thereupon Nelson gave a minute and graphic account of that schoolboy contest.
"I don't see," said Ned, "why Bill Ammon never has mentioned that he was a schoolmate of Dewey's. I should think he would be proud of it."
"The reason is plain enough," said the sailmaker. "He was afraid that might lead up to the story of this fight. Probably he would be quite willing that it should remain untold."
"Well, whatever he was in school days," said Ned, "Bill's a pretty good fellow now; and I don't see that he has much to be ashamed of. It seems he put up a good stiff fight then, and I think he'll do his duty with the best of us now."
"Yes, that's so!" responded two or three.
"Talking about that whitewashing," said the sailor who had opened the conversation, "I think it's all right enough, but it seems to me it might have been applied where it would have done still more good."
"Where's that, Tom?" said the boatswain's mate.
"I suppose you know," said Tom, "that the Itasca and Pinola went up last night to break the chain and make an opening for the fleet to pass through. Caldwell did that all right. But it's going to be a mighty hard matter to steer these big sea-going vessels through that narrow place in the current of a river like this and in the smoke of battle. The thing I'm most afraid of is that some one of our ships will get tangled up among those hulks, and then the rebs can just pound her as if they had her in a mortar. Suppose the ship at the head of the line should get caught across the opening, where would the whole fleet be then?"
"Of course there is great risk," said the boatswain's mate, "but how are you going to avoid it? They took up a new-fangled torpedo to blow up some of the hulks and make a wider opening, but the thing wouldn't work. Those machines that are to go off under water seldom do work."
"I was thinking," said Tom, "that if they had whitewashed the decks of the hulks next to the opening it would go far to prevent such an accident."
"You didn't go up there with Caldwell, and neither did your brother," said the sailmaker. "If you had, I don't think you'd have been anxious to whitewash anything and make yourselves a better target for the sharpshooters on shore. Our men were fired on all the while as it was."
"I think I could have managed it," said Tom.
"Tell us how."
"I would have taken up some buckets of white paint—I see you smile, but you've got ahead of your reckoning. No, I wasn't going to say I'd take some brushes along and make a nice job painting the decks. I'd keep the buckets covered up till just as we were ready to come away, and then I'd simply overturn them on the decks and push off. That would whiten them enough to help our pilots through."
"I'm not sure but that's a good idea," said another sailor.
"Is it?" said the boatswain's mate. "I guess you've never sailed with Caldwell or Dewey. If you had you'd know that either of them would be more horrified at the idea of any such sloppy work, even on the deck of an old hulk, than at doubling the risk of his ship. They're dandies, both of 'em."
"If anything gets afoul of the hulks," remarked a sailor who had not spoken before, "it will probably be this old spinning wheel. The Secretary of the Navy that ordered a side-wheeler for a war ship must have been born and brought up in the backwoods. If we could have got the Colorado over the bar I wouldn't be here. She's the ship we ought to have if we're going to knock those forts to pieces."
"I'm not sure that the largest ships are the best for this work," said the sailmaker. "This whole fleet was built for sea service, and it's out of place in a river like this."
"Of course it's a loss not to have the Colorado with us," said the boatswain's mate. "But the best thing that was aboard of heriswith us."
"What's that?" said several.
"That old sea dog Bailey," answered the boatswain's mate. "He's no dandy, but he knows what to do with a ship in a fight or in a storm or anywhere else. I was with him on the Lexington in forty-six, when we went round Cape Horn to California. That was the beginning of the Mexican War. We carried troops and army officers. Bill Sherman, who commanded a brigade at Bull Run, was among them. So was General Halleck—he was only a lieutenant then."
"Bailey's on the Cayuga now," said the sailor from the Colorado, "and if Farragut understands his business he'll let him lead the line, unless Farragut leads it himself in the flagship. I wish I could be with him; but when we had to leave the Colorado outside they scattered our crew all through the fleet, and I just had the luck to be sent to this old coffee mill."
"As long as Doc. Dewey's on the bridge you needn't be afraid of her," said Sim Nelson, "whether she's a spinning wheel or a coffee mill—and your opinion seems to vary on that point. There was lots of good fighting before propellers were invented, but you appear to think we can't do anything without a propeller."
"A propeller isn't very likely to be struck by a shot," said the man from the Colorado; "but these old windmill sails going round on each side of this tub can hardly help being hit."
"Now you just quit worrying, and settle your mind on an even keel," said Sim Nelson. "There's such a thing as ability, and there's such a thing as luck. Ability and luck don't always go together—more's the pity! There's McDowell at Bull Run, as able as any general there, and he planned the battle well, and our boys put up a good stiff fight; but just at the last the luck turned against him, and then where was he? 'Tisn't so with Doc. Dewey. I've known him ever since we were boys, and his ability and luck always went together. I've no doubt there are plenty of good officers in the fleet, but I'm glad to have him on the bridge of the ship that I sail in, whether it's an old spinning wheel, or a coffee mill, or a windmill, or whatever other name you may invent for it."
The man from the Colorado said no more, and a few minutes later the boatswain called away half of the men who were making netting to assist in protecting the boilers and machinery. They piled up hammocks and coal in such a way as to stop a good many shots that might otherwise reach these vital parts of the ship.
They had not quite finished this task when there was a cry of "Fire raft!" followed quickly by an order to man two boats. Hardly any time seemed to elapse before the boats swung down from the davits and the oarsmen pulled away with a strong, steady stroke. In the stern of each stood two men with a long pole, on the end of which was an iron hook.
Up the stream a little way was an immense mass of flame, gliding down with the current. In the center it was crackling, at the side occasionally hissing where a burning stick touched the water, and above it rose a dense column of smoke, curved at the top and swaying in the light breeze.
"That's the fifth of those villainous valentines they've sent us," said the man from the Colorado.
"Well, we took good care of the other four," said the boatswain, "and I guess we can take care of this, though it's the biggest and ugliest of all. It won't be long now before we send 'em the answer, post paid. Back water, there! back water!"
This command was uttered and obeyed none too quickly. Two of the gunboats—the Kineo and the Sciota—trying to avoid the fire raft, collided violently, and the mainmast of the Sciota went overboard with a crash and just missed striking the boat. Then both the gunboats dragged across the bows of the Mississippi, but skillful management prevented any further damage there, and the two small boats pulled up close to the windward side of the fire raft, at the same time with four boats from two other ships. The men in the stern struck their hooks into the side of the flatboat that formed the base of the blazing pile, and the oarsmen pulled for the shore. The heat almost shriveled the skin on their faces, but they bent to the work with a will, and slowly towed the monster away from the line of the fleet, down stream more than two miles, and then over to the western bank, where they pushed it into the shallow water and mud and left it to burn itself away, a beautiful and harmless spectacle.
As they pulled back to their ships they noticed that the various crews were at work "stopping" the sheet cables up and down the sides, in the line of the engines.
"That's a splendid idea; whose is it?" asked the man at the stroke oar.
"Yes," said the boatswain, "it makes them ironclad as far as it goes. They say it was suggested by Engineer Moore, of the Richmond."
"Splendid fellow!" said the man from the Colorado. "He was a schoolmate of mine."
"Where was that?" said the boatswain.
"Detroit," said the man from the Colorado. "He and I used to run away from school together and swim across to Windsor."
"Um—about half a mile," said the boatswain, musingly, "and current eight miles an hour—very good swimming for boys. But," he added aloud, "Mr. Moore ought to know about that. He thinks he was born and brought up in Plattsburg, New York—I heard him say so—and that his father was in the battle of Lake Champlain. What funny mistakes men make about themselves sometimes!"
The man from the Colorado said no more.
Two o'clock in the morning of April 24, 1862, was fixed as the hour for the fleet to weigh anchor and steam up the river. The moon would rise an hour and a half later, and it was the intention to pass the forts in darkness and have the benefit of moonlight after the gauntlet had been run. Five minutes before two the signal was given—two red lights at the masthead of the flagship; but it was moonrise before all were ready and in motion. The question of a moon, however, was no longer of any consequence, for the Confederates had observed the preparations, and had set fire to immense piles of wood that they kept for the purpose at the ends of the chain, so that the whole scene was as light as day. This did not stop Farragut, who had made up his mind to pass the forts and lay the city under his guns.
The mortar schooners moved up stream to a point near Fort Jackson, and began a heavy bombardment. Then the fleet, in a long line, steamed steadily up the river, passed through the opening in the chain, and with rapid broadsides swept the bastions of the forts as they went by. It was in three divisions. The first, consisting of eight vessels, was led by Captain Theodorus Bailey in the Cayuga; the second, of three vessels, by Farragut in the Hartford; and the third, of six vessels, by Captain Henry H. Bell in the Sciota.
Following the gunboat Cayuga in the first division was the sloop-of-war Pensacola; and next came the side-wheel steamer Mississippi, commanded by Captain Melancton Smith. Her conning bridge rested with its ends on the tops of the high paddle-boxes, and Lieutenant George Dewey, the executive officer, was stationed there to direct her course.
When the signal was given to go ahead Captain Smith asked, a little anxiously, "Do you know the channel, sir?"
"Yes, sir," answered Dewey.
The question was repeated at intervals, and every time it received the same confident answer. The lieutenant afterward admitted that his knowledge of the channel was gained by study of a chart, which was supplemented by his confidence that he could tell from the appearance of the water. Here his usual luck stood him in good stead, as the sailor in the forecastle had declared.
As soon as the Cayuga had passed through the opening in the chain, both forts began to fire on her. Within a few minutes she was pouring a sheet of grape and canister across Fort St. Philip, but she did not slacken her pace, and in ten minutes more was engaged with the Confederate fleet that was waiting for her up the stream.
The Pensacola, next in line, steamed steadily but slowly by, firing with perfect regularity, and doing specially fine execution with a rifled eighty-pounder and an eleven-inch pivot gun. But she paid for her deliberation, as her loss—thirty-seven men—was the greatest in the fleet.
Then came the Mississippi—the old spinning wheel, coffee mill, windmill, as the discontented sailor called her. By this time the air was so thick with smoke from the guns, bonfires, and fire rafts that it was only by the flashes that the gunners could see where to aim. The Mississippi went by the forts in good style, pouring in her fire as she passed, and suffering but slight loss from them. But immediately afterward, like the two vessels that had preceded her, she encountered the Confederate fleet, which consisted of the ironclad ram Manassas, the unfinished ironclad floating battery Louisiana, and a dozen gunboats, some of which were fitted to be used as rams. The Manassas drove straight at the Mississippi, with intention to sink her, and would have done so had not Dewey ordered a quick shift of the helm, which changed the direct blow into a slanting one. This, indeed, gave her a severe cut on the port quarter, and disabled some of her machinery; but at the same moment the Mississippi poured a tremendous fire into the ram. Then she found herself in the thick of the fight with the Confederate fleet. The Oneida and the Varuna came close after her, and here was the most desperate encounter. Shells, round shot, and canister were exchanged as rapidly as the guns could be handled, some of which tore through the sides and found their way to the interior, there to break the machinery or burst and scatter death, while some swept along the decks and struck down the men at the guns. In an action like that the men are under the greatest excitement, with every muscle tense and every nerve strained; and when a ball strikes one it shivers him as if he were made of glass, and scatters ghastly fragments over his comrades. In the confined space where the men work the guns, and with the smoke of battle enveloping them, there is no opportunity to dodge the shot or know they are coming before they have done their work. The only defense consists in rapid and accurate firing by the men, with skill and quick judgment on the part of him who directs the movements of the ship. Everything was ablaze, and the roar was terrific, when a great shot bounced in at one of the ports of the Mississippi, knocked over a gun, killed one gunner and wounded three others, and passed out on the other side. Almost at the same moment the ship from which it was fired received a discharge from the Mississippi that swept away a whole gun's crew. Then there were rapid maneuvers, to ram or avoid ramming, rake or avoid raking, and all the while the guns were booming, shot and splinters were flying across the decks, man after man was struck down, and blood ran out at the scuppers. Signal men in the rigging, sailors with howitzers and muskets in the tops, officers on the bridges, gunners between decks, engineers, firemen, and surgeons below—all were in a state of intense action. The largest of the Confederate vessels, a powerful steamer fitted as a ram, attacked the Varuna, and was subjected to a murderous raking fire from that ship. Finding that his bow gun was mounted too far aft to strike her when at such close quarters, the Confederate commander depressed it and fired through the bow of his own vessel. Then another ram came up and joined in the attack, and the Varuna was reduced to a wreck and driven ashore.
Meanwhile, the second division of the fleet came up, led by the Hartford. This vessel, in attempting to avoid a fire raft, struck on a shoal; then the ram Manassas pushed another blazing raft against her quarter, and in a moment she was on fire. The great excitement thus produced on board the flagship did not for a moment interfere with the discipline. A part of her crew were called to fire quarters and put out the flames, while the rest continued to work the guns with perfect regularity. Then she was backed off into deep water, and continued up stream, firing into every enemy she could reach. A steamer loaded with men (probably intended as a boarding party) bore down upon the flagship, but the marines promptly fired a shell into her which exploded, and she disappeared.
While the Mississippi was engaged in this desperate battle an officer on board kept his eye on Lieutenant Dewey—for on him every movement of the ship depended—and he has described the figure of the young officer on the high bridge as it was alternately hidden by the smoke and illuminated by the flashes of the artillery.
"Every time the dark came back," he says, "I felt sure that we never should see Dewey again. His cap was blown off, and his eyes were aflame; but he gave his orders with the air of a man in thorough command of himself."
The ram Manassas, after her encounter with the Mississippi, had passed down the river in pursuit of other prey, and delivered a blow at the Brooklyn which failed to sink her only because she was promptly turned so as not to receive it at right angles. Then the ram was discovered coming up stream, and Captain Smith signaled to the flagship for permission to attack her with the Mississippi. This being promptly granted, the brave old side-wheeler swung about in the stream and went straight for her dangerous enemy. She failed in an attempt to run down the ram, but crippled it and drove it ashore, when the crew were seen to come out at the little hatch, jump to the levee, and disappear in the swamp. The Mississippi then poured into her another broadside, and she drifted down the stream and blew up.
Fourteen of Farragut's seventeen vessels had succeeded in passing the obstructions and participating in the battle. One of these, the Varuna, was destroyed. All the others carried the scars of battle, and all save one had casualties on board, varying in number from thirty-seven on the Pensacola, thirty-five on the Brooklyn, and twenty-eight on the Iroquois, to a single one on the Portsmouth. The Mississippi lost two men killed and six wounded. The total loss in the fleet was thirty-seven men killed and a hundred and forty-seven wounded. On the other hand, the Confederate fleet was destroyed, the last vessel afloat—the ironclad Louisiana—being blown up by her commander three days later; and the next day after that a land force commanded by General Butler came up in rear of the forts, and they were surrendered.
When the dead were laid out side by side on the decks for the last rites, there were manly tears on the faces of many of their shipmates, and the eyes of dear old Farragut were not dry.
The larger part of the fleet pushed on up the river, and the next day the city of New Orleans was captured.
No such battle as this had been seen before, and no such ever will be seen again. A fleet of wooden vessels, all built for sea service, had entered a river and fought against obstructions, fire rafts, fortifications, rams, ironclads, and gunboats, and had won a complete victory over all. This was a wonderful school for a young officer.
THE BATTLE AT PORT HUDSON.
THE BATTLE AT PORT HUDSON.
New Orleans being captured and firmly held, the next problem was to patrol and police the Mississippi from that point to Cairo, Illinois, and prevent the Confederates from crossing it with troops and supplies. Thus only could the full fruits of Farragut's original and brilliant exploit be secured. As soon as the war was fairly begun, the Government had ordered an ironclad fleet of light draught to be built for service on the Western rivers, and many of these vessels were completed in a hundred days from the laying of the keel. They took pretty good care of the river above Vicksburg, and below that point Farragut's fleet was expected to do the work. This was an arduous and monotonous task, calling for patience, endurance, and skill, involving almost daily loss of single lives from field artillery and sharpshooters on shore, but giving few opportunities for glory.
At two points, both on the eastern side of the river, the Confederates constructed formidable works, with heavy artillery. These were Vicksburg and Port Hudson, about a hundred miles apart. The choice of these points was for a double reason. At each of them a line of transportation from the southwest reached the river, by which supplies were brought for the Confederate armies in the States farther east; and at each of them there was a bend in the stream, with high bluffs on the eastern side and low land on the western. Thus the two points that it was most desirable to protect were most easily protected.
General Butler was superseded in command at New Orleans by General Banks; and after a time it was planned that Banks should move up with a large force to attack Port Hudson, while an army under General Grant came from above to capture Vicksburg; and the fleets were expected to assist in both of these campaigns.
Great difficulties were met by the national armies, and everything appeared to move with insufferable slowness. The authorities at Washington seemed to think that as Farragut's fleet had passed the batteries below New Orleans, it could pass any batteries, and a spirit of impatience was manifest because the river was not quickly and thoroughly cleared and held. A very important difference in the circumstances was overlooked. The forts below New Orleans were on low ground, and as the fleet sailed by, its decks were nearly or quite on a level with the bastions, which could be swept by the fire of the broadsides. But at Vicksburg and Port Hudson the batteries were on high bluffs and could send down a plunging fire on the ships, to which the fleet could hardly reply with much effect.
Finally, the Admiral received peremptory orders to "clear the river through," which meant, run by the fortifications of Vicksburg and capture or destroy the Confederate vessels above that point that were either afloat or being built. The most important of these was the powerful ironclad ram Arkansas, which was expected to come out of the Arkansas or the Yazoo River into the Mississippi and attack the fleet of gunboats.
Farragut had appeared before Vicksburg in May and demanded the surrender of the place; but this was refused, and without the co-operation of an army the demand could not be enforced. The construction of the defenses then proceeded more rapidly than before, and when his peremptory orders came, late in June, the place was very strong. On the 28th he attempted the passage with ten vessels, aided by the mortar flotilla. While the mortars were raining shells into the works the vessels steamed up the river in two columns, and all passed the batteries except three of the rear division, which, from a misunderstanding of orders, fell back. The losses in the fleet were fifteen men killed and forty wounded. One gunboat received a shot through the boiler, which killed six men by scalding. No other vessel was seriously injured.
Dewey's ship, the Mississippi, did not participate in this exploit. The affair has been described briefly here because of its influence on a later and more hazardous one in which she did take part, to her cost. The passage of the Vicksburg batteries convinced the men of the navy that, with small loss, they could pass any batteries, no matter how situated. Farragut wrote: "The Department will perceive from my report that the forts can be passed, and we have done it, and can do it again as often as it may be required of us."
That was in the summer of 1862, when Vicksburg was but partially fortified and Port Hudson hardly at all. But the Confederate Government awoke to the extreme importance of those points, and the work of fortifying them went on rapidly. In some respects the fortifications of Port Hudson, on the river side at least, were even more formidable than those of Vicksburg. After a reconnoissance in the autumn of 1862, Commander Lowry reported: "The plan appears to be this: to place their works in such a position that, we having passed or silenced one or more of the lower batteries, other concealed batteries open, which will throw a cross fire into the stern of the vessels, which would then be exposed to a cross fire from batteries yet to be approached and silenced and from the masked ones left astern."
In March, 1863, it was arranged that Farragut should run by the batteries of Port Hudson, while Banks, with twelve thousand men, should assail them on the land side. The objects to be gained by running by the batteries were: To concentrate the fleet above Port Hudson for the destruction of the Confederate vessels; to blockade Red River and the bayous; and to communicate with the naval and military forces that were besieging Vicksburg.