Capture of New Orleans
In The Night the War Was Lost, historian Charles Dufour attempts to “pinpoint the place and the time in the West where the Union Navy won the crucial decision which ... pointed the way to Appomattox.” It was, as Dufour attested, “on the Mississippi River, below New Orleans, in the pre-dawn hours of April 24, 1862, when Flag Officer David G. Farragut with fourteen vessels ran past Forts Jackson and St. Philip to put the South’s great city at his mercy.”
Indeed, New Orleans was the South’s largest, most populated city at the outbreak of the Civil War. Its location at the mouth of the Mississippi River made it a vital hub for industry, manufacturing, shipping and commerce. In the spring of 1861, New Orleans ranked among the most important Confederate cities, second only to the Rebel capital of Richmond, Virginia. But from the general apathy of Richmond authorities in choosing and supporting an officer to protect the Crescent City, to the understanding of the city’s material value, war policy regarding the city was poorly coordinated. Most importantly, the Confederate strategy to defend New Orleans relied on an antiquated system of fortifications — brick-and-mortar sentinels — to guard the navigable approaches to the city. The capture of New Orleans highlighted a fatal flaw within the Confederacy’s war planning: the failure to understand the strategic, operational and tactical modes of warfare.
When Brig. Gen. Johnson K. Duncan reported to Maj. Gen. David E. Twiggs in May 1861, the task before them was immense. Twiggs was a decorated Mexican War soldier personally chosen by Confederate Attorney General Judah P. Benjamin to protect New Orleans. While an accomplished soldier in the past, Twiggs was then 71 years old, “enfeebled” and a shadow of his former self. Duncan, on the other hand, was a 32-year-old member of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point class of 1849. By 1855, frustrated by life in the peacetime army, he resigned and relocated to New Orleans to become a builder and architect, working alongside P.G.T. Beauregard to complete work on the U.S. Mint in New Orleans in 1859. When the war broke out, Duncan re-entered military service on behalf of the Confederacy and commanded the First Louisiana Artillery Regiment. In January 1862, he assumed command of the defenses of New Orleans along the southern approach to the city, which was guarded by Fort St. Philip — like Twiggs, a relic of a bygone era — and the newer Fort Jackson. The two soldiers could not have been more different, but they were united in objective: defend New Orleans.
While Twiggs set to work organizing the training of men and administering military affairs in the city, he also dealt with the Confederate War Department’s meddling. Constant demands for additional reinforcements in other theaters of the war drew well-trained regular army soldiers from the Crescent City to far-off fields in Kentucky, Virginia and even Florida. Thus challenged by the manpower crisis, Twiggs’s strengthening of the fortifications and fixed defenses of New Orleans fell by the wayside. Duncan’s dual forts — plus Fort Pike, which protected the Rigolets; Fort Proctor, which guarded the eastern approaches over Lake Borgne; Fort Livingston, which sat upon Grand Terre on the Gulf of Mexico; and Battery Bienvenue, positioned near Bayou Sauvage on Lake Borgne — were all that stood in the way of a naval threat to the city.
While known for its eclectic culture, amazing food, and all around nightlife, New Orleans is also host to a variety of historic sites that touch on...
During the War of 1812, the legendary British Admiral Horatio Nelson’s adage, “a ship’s a fool to fight a fort,” still held true; brick-and-mortar forts were typically able to keep wooden sailing vessels at bay. But in the 1860s, the advent of steam-powered navigation had largely rendered even the most modern masonry fortress obsolete. Thus, perhaps unsurprisingly, Twiggs lacked the energy and alacrity to manage every aspect of his assignment. Faced with complications from his advanced age, he resigned and was replaced by Maj. Gen. Mansfield Lovell in October 1861.
While the Confederates fumbled over command, Federal war planners devised a strategy to seize New Orleans and reclaim the mouth of the Mississippi River. The plan, approved by President Abraham Lincoln, required Flag Officer David G. Farragut’s Gulf Blockading Squadron to set course for the Mississippi River and maneuver past Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip to seize the city. Meanwhile, in New Orleans, Lovell attempted to address concerns about the city’s preparedness for war. Lovell and Duncan coordinated a plan to install a chain to extend across the Mississippi River between Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip that, in theory, was intended to block the waterway to northbound vessels.
It was far too little, far too late. In March 1862, Lovell wrote to Maj. Gen. Samuel Jones in Mobile, Alabama, his desperation evident: “Time is passing rapidly. More than a dozen ships of war are at the mouth of the river…. What is Mobile worth with the Mississippi in the hands of the enemy?” He was met with yet more orders to dispatch troops away from the city to reinforce Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard. Clearly exasperated, Lovell wrote to the Creole, “People send here for everything, and I have stripped the department, but never get anything in return that I ask for.” Despite all his setbacks and worry, Lovell believed that the defenders of Forts Jackson and St. Philip were up to the task of protecting the city, and he notified Richmond of his confidence.
By April 10, some 40 Federal naval vessels crossed the sandbar at the mouth of the river and weighed anchor 80 miles south of New Orleans. In the city, arrangements were underway for the warship, CSS Louisiana, to be sent down to Fort Jackson and used as a floating battery. The Confederate naval efforts in the defense of New Orleans, as demonstrated by the sacrifice of the Louisiana as a gun platform, were makeshift at best. A failure to communicate within the Rebel navy left the gunboats Manassas, McRae, Louisiana and Jackson, as well as the steamers Governor Moore and General Quitman to suffer a gripping command paralysis. The vessels fell to the command of Capt. John K. Mitchell, while the River Defense Fleet — made up of the gunboats Warrior, Stonewall Jackson, Resolute, R.J. Breckinridge, Defiance and General Lovell — fell to the command of Capt. John A. Stevenson. Mitchell and Stevenson disagreed as to who should have overall command and this only furthered Duncan’s growing impatience. Frustrated with Mitchell, Duncan appealed to Lovell, but met resistance from Commandant William Whittle. In a last bid to strengthen the defenses at the forts, Duncan messaged Mitchell directly and informed him of the urgency. The Federal fleet, as he well knew, could strike at any moment. Finally, Mitchell allowed the Louisiana to be towed into position.
Fire rafts burned on the river illuminating the viewshed between Forts Jackson and St. Philip for days leading up to April 24, 1862. Just after 3:30 a.m., using the cover of darkness, Farragut’s USS Hartford led the way for 17 warships to steam north toward New Orleans. After a concentrated mortar bombardment commanded by Farragut’s foster brother, Cmdr. David Porter, in the days preceding the attack, the moment had finally come. Oddly, none of the fire rafts were lit, and the river between the forts was cloaked in darkness. The USS Cayuga came into range and was detected by the garrison at St. Philip. Cannon blasts soon illuminated the sky, and the naval fleet was silhouetted against the flashing, fiery backdrop. All of Duncan and Lovell’s pained preparation over the preceding months had been in vain. Farragut’s squadron punched through the Confederate defenses and ran the guns of the forts. By daybreak on April 25, all but four of his vessels had cleared the gauntlet and continued toward the city. With only scarce defenses left in their path, the fall of Confederate New Orleans was certain.
If Twiggs had moved slowly in preparing the city for war, Lovell made haste to evacuate whatever meager troops he had left at his disposal. After a massive struggle to tow the unfinished CSS Mississippi, crews set her ablaze and sent the burning hulk down river. Somewhere south of the city, the ship that “could have raised the blockade of every port in the south” sank to her murky, abrupt end. By 2:00 p.m., Farragut’s fleet anchored in New Orleans. The city, however, was not ready to surrender. When the demand came, Lovell refused. Then, after he delivered a speech to the citizens of New Orleans, Lovell and his staff rode to the Jackson Railroad and boarded the last train to Camp Moore in Tangipahoa, Louisiana, where he had sent the rest of his garrison.
Further south, despite having failed to hold back the Federal navy, the garrisons of the forts stood firm, but under growing duress. On April 27, Duncan addressed the “soldiers of Forts Jackson and St. Philip” saying:
You have nobly, gallantly, and heroically sustained with courage and fortitude the terrible ordeals of fire, water, and a hail of shot and shell wholly unsurpassed during the present war. But more remains to be done. The safety of New Orleans and the cause of the Southern Confederacy, our homes, families, and everything dear to man yet depend upon our exertions. We are just as capable of repelling the enemy today as we were before the bombardment. Twice the enemy has demanded your surrender and twice has he been refused. Your officers have every confidence in your courage and patriotism, and feel every assurance that you will cheerfully and with alacrity obey all orders and do your whole duty as men and as becomes the well-tried garrisons of Fort Jackson and Saint Philip. Be vigilant, therefore, and stand by your guns, and all will yet be well.
But all was not well. Duncan’s rousing speech “failed of the desired effect” and by midnight, the garrison at Fort Jackson broke into mutiny. As morning came on April 28, Duncan surrendered to Porter.
In New Orleans, Farragut was becoming impatient and threatened to bombard the city into submission. On April 29, after days of blustering, New Orleans Mayor John T. Monroe watched as Farragut, his officers and a detachment of U.S. Marines hoisted the American flag over the Customs House. The Crescent City was back in Federal hands.
Detailing the larger impact of the capture of New Orleans, historian Allan Nevins concluded that, “Confederate leaders had made a tardy, ill-coordinated effort to muster at the river barrier … the Southerners had been hampered by poverty, disorganization, lack of skilled engineers and craftsmen, friction between State authorities and Richmond, and want of foresight.” At every level, Confederate leadership failed to understand and meet the demands of defending the city of New Orleans. With the Confederacy’s largest, most important city and the mouth of the Mississippi River in Federal hands, the experiment in rebellion was living on borrowed time.
Today, the city’s Civil War fortifications sit in disrepair. These long neglected silent sentinels have been left to nature. With each passing day, the tides sweep over the last remnants of the forlorn defense of New Orleans.
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