WITH SOME NOTES ON THE BLOCKADE

While the West in 1861–62 was alive with marching armies and the sound of strife, the East had been experiencing its share of activity by land and sea, and the navy must first engage us. The blockade became steadily more effective as new ships, purchased, chartered, or built for the purpose, gathered at the various rendezvous. Hatteras Inlet and Port Royal, seized in the fall of 1861,216 became bases for coast and inland expeditions which narrowed the Confederate hold on the shore of the Atlantic. In January, 1862, a fleet and army, braving the mid-winter storms which were more formidable than human opposition, entered by Hatteras Inlet, in order to dominate more completely the North Carolina sounds. The fortifications on Roanoke Island, lying between Albemarle and Pamlico sounds, were easily captured, February 8th. New-Berne and other towns were soon after occupied, and the inlets and river-mouths so occupied and threatened that the outlets to the sea became for the Confederates few and perilous. This successful course was interrupted during the Virginia campaign of the summer; the troops were to a large extent withdrawn to places where reinforcements were demanded. The Roanoke Island expedition is noteworthy, among other reasons, for bringing to the front Ambrose E. Burnside, its commander,217 a brave and well-intentioned patriot, quite inadequate, however, for large responsibilities, which later came upon him.

During these same weeks forces farther south were equally busy in expeditions from Port Royal. Fort Pulaski, the strong work which commanded the approaches to Savannah, a post environed by swamps and watercourses, and therefore difficult of access, succumbed rather to the engineering skill than to the bravery of its assailants, April 11, 1862; therefore, most of the littoral of Georgia, in addition to that of North and South Carolina, was in Federal hands.218 These conquests were presently supplemented by the occupation of the Atlantic ports of Florida. On the Gulf side, the retention of Fort Pickens by Union forces from the beginning had put Pensacola Harbor under Federal control. The blockade, at first deemed impracticable, within a year of its establishment was throttling the foreign commerce which was vital to the Confederacy. On the Atlantic scarcely any important ports were left except Charleston and Wilmington; and before the thresholds of these places lay, night and day, the fierce and watchful war-dogs of the Union.219 Nevertheless, up to April, 1862, the Gulf ports of Mobile, New Orleans, Galveston, and Matagorda still remained to the Confederacy. How long could these maintain themselves?

This swift and easy repossession of the southern coastline by the Union, however important, lacked the wholesale excitement of great and bloody battles, and was a game little appreciated. But in the midst of it came an incident dramatic and startling in the highest degree, its hero being a naval officer, David Glasgow Farragut, son of a Spaniard from the island of Minorca, who had married a girl of Scotch strain and settled in the Tennessee mountains. After the birth of David the family removed to Louisiana, the father receiving a naval command. David as a boy of thirteen was on the Essex at Valparaiso, in 1814, in her famous fight against the Phoebe and Cherub. He had done good service on the seas and in port for almost fifty years, but his opportunity did not come until he was sixty years old.220

The need of seizing New Orleans, if practicable, was obvious: the place commanded the lower Mississippi, and was the most populous and important city of the Confederacy. The government, therefore, early gave thought to its capture, assigning for that end a land force of eighteen thousand men, under General Benjamin F. Butler, and a powerful fleet. It was recognized that the navy must play the larger part in the operations: eighty-two ships, therefore, were assigned to the West Gulf Squadron, ranging from tugs, mortar-schooners, and chartered ferry-boats to the most powerful man-of-war which the nation owned.221 To command this great fleet was chosen Farragut, whose force and capacity had been recognized, especially by Welles, Secretary of the Navy.222 He hoisted his flag on the Hartford, a wooden ship of nineteen hundred tons and twenty-four guns, and February 2, 1862, sailed southward from Hampton Roads to Ship Island, midway between the mouth of the Mississippi and Mobile, the rendezvous for the army and squadron.

Farragut’s ships were all of wood; and, although steam in great part was the motive-power, sails were not superseded. Even as Farragut was concentrating in the Gulf, an event, to be described presently, took place in Hampton Roads which revolutionized naval warfare. But the enterprises in the Gulf were well started, and some triumphs still remained for the old-fashioned sailor and the old-fashioned ship.223 In March the fleet managed to cross the bar and enter the Mississippi, a feat of no small difficulty in the case of the heavier vessels. The Colorado was left outside, the Pensacola was dragged by her consorts through a foot of mud, and the Mississippi was scarcely less embarrassed. At last the squadron of attack was for the most part within the branches of the river; at the head of the passes they stripped like gladiators for a final struggle, and proceeded to attack the main obstructions twenty miles above. Farragut had seventeen ships for the attack, mounting one hundred and fifty guns, besides twenty mortar-schooners, with six attendant gunboats, under Commodore David D. Porter.

Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, well manned and equipped, guarded the river on the west and east. An enormous chain, supported on anchored hulks, stretched across the half-mile of current to hold any approaching hostile vessels at a point where the fire of the forts could converge. Above the forts, a formidable flotilla of craft variously armed with rams and guns, some heaped with pitch-pine knots to serve as fire-ships, stood ready to take part.224

Unless this boom could be broken the ships could not ascend. Farragut ordered two gunboats to this dangerous task. Stealing up at night, they accomplished it. On the night of April 23d, the ships advanced, a column led by the Cayuga following the eastern bank; Farragut himself, in the Hartford, led the column which was to pass close to Fort Jackson. Now came a rare blending of the splendid and the terrible. The night was calm, with starlight and a waning moon; but in the fiercer flashings of the combat the world seemed on fire. In arcs rising far toward the zenith the shells of the mortars mounted and fell; broadsides thundered; from barbette and casemate rolled an incessant reply. Suddenly above the flashes of guns came a steady glare: fire-ships, their pitch-pine cargoes all ablaze, swept into the midst of the struggling fleet. The attacking lines became confused in the volumes of smoke settling down upon the stream. In the blinding vapor friend could scarcely be told from foe. The captain of the Confederate Governor Moore, finding that the bow of his own ship interfered with the aim of his gun, coolly blew the bow to pieces with a discharge, then through the shattered opening renewed the battle. A Confederate tug pluckily pushed a fire-raft directly upon the Hartford. The tug and its crew disappeared and the Hartford ran aground; the sailors, undaunted, stuck to their work; the ship was pulled off by her own engines, while a deluge from the pumps put out the fire. For an hour and a half the roar and the flashings continued; as the dawn came, the battle was hushed. Three Federal gunboats had been driven back and one sunk, but the main fleet was above the forts. The ships in general were scarred and battered in the night’s encounter, but little harmed, and Farragut made ready at once to go on his way.225

The passing of the forts made certain the fall of New Orleans. The small Confederate army under General Mansfield Lovell was at once withdrawn and the city left to its fate. Farragut appeared before it, after passing rapidly up the intervening seventy miles, at noon, April 25th. The population of one hundred and fifty thousand souls, seething with natural mortification and passion, lay under the broadsides of the fleet, and, after one outburst, in which a mob trampled on the United States flag, they sullenly submitted. With all possible expedition, the forts having given up, the land forces ascended the river and, on May 1st, took possession.226 Farragut soon ascended the river to Vicksburg with a large part of his fleet.

SYNOPSIS OF THE PRINCIPAL EVENTS, CHIEFLY
MILITARY, BETWEEN FARRAGUT’S CAPTURE
OF NEW ORLEANS, 1862, AND THE
BATTLES OF GETTYSBURG
AND VICKSBURG, 1863

1862. Battle of Shiloh. Capture of Island No. 10. Battle of Seven Pines and Fair Oaks. “Seven Days’ Battle” between the armies of McClellan and Lee before Richmond. Repulse of the Confederates at Malvern Hill, and a constant succession of battles. Halleck appointed Federal commander-in-chief. Confederate victory at Cedar Mountain. Second battle of Bull Run and defeat of the Federals. Battle of South Mountain. Battle of Antietam Creek. Proclamation of Emancipation. The Confederate cavalry under General Stuart makes a successful raid into Pennsylvania. Burnside succeeds McClellan as commander of the Army of the Potomac. Battle of Fredericksburg and repulse of the Federals.

1863. Definite abolition of slavery in the rebellious states. Hooker commands Army of the Potomac. West Virginia admitted (by proclamation) into the Union. Confederate victory at Chancellorsville. General Grant invests Vicksburg. Lee occupies Winchester, crosses the Potomac, and enters Pennsylvania. Meade appointed commander of the Army of the Potomac. Battle of Gettysburg, July 1–3. Fall of Vicksburg, July 4th.