Volume II Part 19 (1/2)

His naval experience had been energetically applied in the attempts to preserve and repair the raft. As immediate commander of Fort St.

Philip he had done all which skill and gallantry could achieve, and, though for forty-eight hours during the bombardment he never left the rampart, yet, with commendable care for his men, he kept them so under cover that, notwithstanding the long and furious a.s.sault to which the fort was subjected, the total of casualties in it was two killed and four wounded. Their conduct was such as was to be antic.i.p.ated, for, had these officers been actuated by a lower motive than patriotism, had they been seeking the rewards which power confers, they would not have taken service with the weaker party.

Their meed was the consciousness of duty well done in a righteous cause, and the enduring admiration and esteem of a people who had only these to confer.

During the 25th, 26th, and 27th, there had been an abatement of fire on the forts, and with it had subsided the excitement which imminent danger creates in the brave. A rumor became current that the city had surrendered, and no reply had been received to inquiries sent on the 24th and 25th. About midnight on the 27th the garrison of Fort Jackson revolted _en ma.s.se_, seized upon the guard, and commenced to spike the guns. Captain S. O. Comay's company, the Louisiana Cannoneers of St. Mary's Parish, and a few others remained true to their cause and country. The mutiny was so general that the officers were powerless to control it, and therefore decided to let those go who wished to leave, and after daybreak to communicate with the fleet below and negotiate for the terms which had been previously offered and declined.

Under the incessant fire to which the forts had been exposed, and the rise of the water in the casemates and lower part of the works, the men had been not only deprived of sleep, but of the opportunity to prepare their food. Heroically they had braved alike dangers and discomfort; had labored constantly to repair damages; to extinguish fires caused by exploding sh.e.l.ls; to preserve their ammunition by bailing out the water which threatened to submerge the magazine: yet, in a period of comparative repose, these men, who had been cheerful and obedient, as suddenly as unexpectedly, broke out into open mutiny. Under the circ.u.mstances which surrounded him, General Duncan had no alternative. It only remained for him to accept the proposition which had been made for a surrender of the forts. As this mutiny became known about midnight of the 27th, soon after daylight of the 28th a small boat was procured, and notice of the event was sent to Captain Mitch.e.l.l, on the Louisiana, and also to Fort St.

Philip. The officers of that fort concurred in the propriety of the surrender, though none of their men had openly revolted.

A flag of truce was sent to Commodore Porter to notify him of a willingness to negotiate for the surrender of the forts. The gallantry with which the defense had been conducted was recognized by the enemy, and the terms were as liberal as had been offered on former occasions.

The garrisons were paroled, the officers were to retain their side-arms, and the Confederate flags were left flying over the forts until after our forces had withdrawn. If this was done as a generous recognition of the gallantry with which the forts had been defended, it claims acknowledgment as an instance of martial courtesy--the flower that blooms fairest amid the desolations of war.

Captain Mitch.e.l.l, commanding the Confederate States naval forces, had been notified by General Duncan of the mutiny in the forts and of the fact that the enemy had pa.s.sed through a channel in rear of Fort St.

Philip and had landed a force at the quarantine, some six miles above, and that, under the circ.u.mstances, it was deemed necessary to surrender the forts. As the naval forces were not under the orders of the general commanding the coast-defenses, it was optional with the naval commander to do likewise or not as to his fleet. After consultation with his officers. Captain Mitch.e.l.l decided to destroy his flags.h.i.+p, the Louisiana, the only formidable vessel he had, rather than allow her to fall into the hands of the enemy. The crew was accordingly withdrawn, and the vessel set on fire.

Commodore Porter, commanding the fleet below, came up under a flag of truce to Fort Jackson, and, while negotiations were progressing for the surrender, the Louisiana, in flames, drifted down the river, and, when close under Fort St. Philip, exploded and sank.

The defenses afloat, except the Louisiana, consisted of tugs and river-steamers, which had been converted to war purposes by protecting their bows with iron so as to make them rams, and putting on them such armament as boats of that cla.s.s would bear; and these were again divided into such as were subject to control as naval vessels, and others which, in compliance with the wish of the Governor of Louisiana and many influential citizens, were fitted out to a great extent by State and private sources, with the condition that they should be commanded by river-steamboat captains, and should not be under the control of the naval commander. This, of course, impaired the unity requisite in battle. For many other purposes they might have been used without experiencing the inconvenience felt when they were brought together to act as one force against the enemy. The courts of inquiry and the investigation by a committee of Congress have brought out all the facts of the case, but with such conflicting opinions as render it very difficult, in reviewing the matter, to reach a definite and satisfactory conclusion. This much it may be proper to say, that expectations, founded upon the supposition that these improvised means could do all which might fairly be expected from war-vessels, were unreasonable, and a judgment based upon them is unjust to the parties involved. The machinery of the Louisiana was so incomplete as to deprive her of locomotion, but she had been so well constructed as to possess very satisfactory resisting powers, as was shown by the fact that the broadsides of the enemy's vessels, fired at very close quarters, had little or no effect upon her s.h.i.+eld. Without power of locomotion, her usefulness was limited to employment as a floating battery. The question as to whether she was in the right position, or whether, in her unfinished condition, she should have been sent from the city, is one, for an answer to which I must refer the inquirer to the testimony of naval men, who were certainly most competent to decide the issue.

One of the little river-boats, the Governor Moore, commanded by lieutenant Beverly Kennon, like the others, imperfectly protected at the bow, struck and sunk the Varuna, in close proximity to other vessels of the enemy's fleet. Such daring resulted in his losing, in killed and wounded, seventy-four out of a crew of ninety-three. Then finding that he must destroy his s.h.i.+p to prevent her from falling into the hands of the enemy, he set her on fire, and testified as follows:

”I ordered the wounded to be placed in a boat, and all the men who could to save themselves by swimming to the sh.o.r.e and hiding themselves in the marshes. I remained to set the s.h.i.+p on fire. After doing so, I went on deck with the intention of leaving her, but found the wounded had been left with no one to take care of them. I remained and lowered them into a boat, and got through just in time to be made a prisoner. The wounded were afterward attended by the surgeons of the Oneida and Eureka.”

This, he says, was the only foundation for the accusation of having burned his wounded with his s.h.i.+p. Another, the Mana.s.sas, lieutenant-commanding Warley, though merely an altered ”tug-boat,”

stoutly fought the large s.h.i.+ps; but, being wholly unprotected, except at her bow, was perforated in many places, as soon as the guns were brought to bear upon her sides, and floated down the river a burning wreck. Another of the same cla.s.s is thus referred to by Colonel Higgins:

”At daylight, I observed the McRae, gallantly fighting at terrible odds, contending at close quarters with two of the enemy's powerful s.h.i.+ps. Her gallant commander, Lieutenant Thomas B. Huger, fell during the conflict, severely, but I trust not mortally, wounded.”

This little vessel, after her unequal conflict, was still afloat, and, with permission of the enemy, went up to New Orleans to convey the wounded as well from our forts as from the fleet.

On the 23d of April, 1862, General Lovell, commanding the military department, had gone down to Fort Jackson, where General Duncan, commanding the coast-defenses, then made his headquarters. The presence of the department commander did not avail to secure the full cooperation between the defenses afloat and the land-defenses, which was then of most pressing and immediate necessity.

When the enemy's fleet pa.s.sed the forts, he hastened back to New Orleans, his headquarters. The confusion which prevailed in the city, when the news arrived that the forts had been pa.s.sed by the enemy's fleet, shows how little it was expected. There was nothing to obstruct the ascent of the river between Forts Jackson and St. Philip and the batteries on the river where the interior line of defense rested on its right and left banks, about four miles below the city.

The guns were not sufficiently numerous in these batteries to inspire much confidence; they were nevertheless well served until the ammunition was exhausted, after which the garrisons withdrew, and made their way by different routes to join the forces withdrawn from New Orleans.

Under the supposition entertained by the generals nearest to the operations, the greatest danger to New Orleans was from above, not from below, the city; therefore, most of the troops had been sent from the city to Tennessee, and Captain Hollins, with the greater part of the river-fleet, had gone up to check the descent of the enemy's gunboats.

Batteries like those immediately below the city had been constructed where the interior line touched the river above, and armed to resist an attack from that direction. Doubtful as to the direction from which, and the manner in which, an attempt might be made to capture the city, such preparations as circ.u.mstances suggested were made against many supposable dangers by the many possible routes of approach. To defend the city from the land, against a bombardment by a powerful fleet in the river before it, had not been contemplated.

All the defensive preparations were properly, I think, directed to the prevention of a near approach by the enemy. To have subjected the city to bombardment by a direct or plunging fire, as the surface of the river was then higher than the land, would have been exceptionally destructive. Had the city been filled with soldiers whose families had been sent to a place of safety, instead of being filled with women and children whose natural protectors were generally in the army and far away, the attempt might have been justified to line the levee with all the effective guns and open fire on the fleet, at the expense of whatever property might be destroyed before the enemy should be driven away. The case was the reverse of the hypothesis, and nothing could have been more unjust than to censure the commanding General for withdrawing a force large enough to induce a bombardment, but insufficient to repel it. His answer to the demand for the surrender showed clearly enough the motives by which he was influenced. His refusal enabled him to withdraw the troops and most of the public property, and to use them, with the ordnance and ordnance stores thus saved, in providing for the defense of Vicksburg, but especially it deprived the enemy of any pretext for bombarding the town and sacrificing the lives of the women and children. It appears that General Lovell called for ten thousand volunteers from the citizens, but failed to get them. There were many river-steamboats at the landing, and, if the volunteers called for were intended to man these boats and board the enemy's fleet before their land-forces could arrive, it can not be regarded as utterly impracticable. The report of General Butler shows that he worked his way through one of the bayous in rear of Fort St. Philip to the Mississippi River above the forts so as to put himself in communication with the fleet at the city, and to furnish Commodore Farragut with ammunition. From this it is to be inferred that the fleet was deficient in ammunition, and the fact would have rendered boarding from river-boats the more likely to succeed. In this connection it may be remembered that, during the war, John Taylor Wood, Colonel and A. D. C. to the President, who had been an officer of high repute in the ”old Navy,” did in open boats attack armed vessels, board and capture them, though found with nettings up, having been warned of the probability of such an attack.[57]

Many causes have been a.s.signed for the fall of New Orleans. Two of them are of undeniable force: First, the failure to light up the channel; second, the want of an obstruction which would detain the fleet under fire of the forts. General Duncan's report and testimony justify the conclusion that to the thick veil of darkness the enemy was indebted for his ability to run past the forts.

The argument that the guns were not of sufficiently large caliber to stop the fleet is not convincing. If all the guns had been of the largest size, that would not have increased the accuracy but would have diminished the rapidity of the fire, and therefore in the same degree would have lessened the chances of hitting objects in the dark. Further, it appears that the forts always crippled or repulsed any vessels which came up in daylight.

The forts would have been better able to resist bombardment if they had been heavily plated with iron; but that would not have prevented the fleet from pa.s.sing them as they did. Torpedoes might have been placed on the bar at the mouth of the river before the enemy got possession of it, and subsequently, if attached to buoys, they might have been used in the deep channel above. Many other things which were omitted might and probably would have been done had attention been earlier concentrated on the danger which at last proved fatal.

If the volunteer river-defense fleet was ineffective, as alleged, because it was not subject to the orders of the naval commander, that was an evil without a remedy. The Governor of Louisiana had arranged with the projectors that they should not be subject to the naval commander, and the alternative of not accepting them with that condition was that they would not agree to convert their steamers into war-vessels. Unless, therefore, it can be shown that they were worse than none, their presence can not be properly enumerated among the causes of the failure.