Naval battle of the American Civil War
The battle of Forts Jackson and St. Philip (April 18–28, 1862) was the decisive battle for possession of New Orleans in the American Civil War. The two Confederate forts on the Mississippi River south of the city were attacked by a Union Navy fleet. As long as the forts could keep the Federal forces from moving on the city, it was safe, but if they fell or were bypassed, there were no fall-back positions to impede the Union advance.
New Orleans, the largest city in the Confederacy, was already under threat of attack from its north when David Farragut moved his fleet into the river from the south. The Confederate Navy had previously driven off the Union blockade fleet in the Battle of the Head of Passes the previous October. Although the Union threat from upriver was geographically more remote than that from the Gulf of Mexico, a series of losses in Kentucky and Tennessee had forced the Confederate War and Navy Departments in Richmond to strip the region of much of its defenses. Men and equipment had been withdrawn from the local defenses, so that by mid-April almost nothing remained south of the city except the two forts and an assortment of gunboats of questionable worth. Without reducing the pressure from the north, (Union) President Abraham Lincoln set in motion a combined Army-Navy operation to attack from the south. The Union Army offered 18,000 soldiers, led by the political general Benjamin F. Butler. The Navy contributed a large fraction of its West Gulf Blockading Squadron, which was commanded by Flag Officer David G. Farragut. The squadron was augmented by a semi-autonomous flotilla of mortar schooners and their support vessels under Commander David Dixon Porter.
The expedition assembled at Ship Island in the Gulf. Once they were ready, the naval contingent moved its ships into the river, an operation that was completed on April 14. They were then moved into position near the forts, and on April 18 the mortars opened the battle.
The ensuing battle can be divided into two parts: a mostly-ineffective bombardment of the Confederate-held forts by the raft-mounted mortars, and the successful passage of the forts by much of Farragut's fleet on the night of April 24. During the passage, one Federal warship was lost and three others turned back, while the Confederate gunboats were virtually obliterated. The subsequent capture of the city, achieved with no further significant opposition, was a serious, even fatal, blow from which the Confederacy never recovered. The forts remained after the fleet had passed, but the demoralized enlisted men in Fort Jackson mutinied and forced their surrender.
Background.
Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip were a pair of closely associated forts on the Mississippi River. They were sited some above Head of Passes, where the river divides before it finally enters the Gulf of Mexico, or about downstream from New Orleans. Fort Jackson was on the right (generally west, but here south) bank, while Fort St. Philip was on the left (here, north) bank of the river. Because of the path of the river, Fort Jackson was actually somewhat east of Fort St. Philip. Designed for defense against invasion in the days of sail, the two forts were sited near a bend in the river that would force ships to slow down in passing, so they would be nearly stationary targets under the 177 guns of the forts that bore on the channel.
Union preparations.
Although land-based forts had long been considered to be invulnerable to attack by naval guns, some weaknesses had been exposed in the Battle of Port Royal, South Carolina, on November 7, 1861. Following that battle, (Union) Assistant Secretary of the Navy Gustavus V. Fox began to press for expanded use of the United States Navy in attacking coastal Confederate positions. He particularly emphasized the desirability of assaulting New Orleans, the largest city in the Confederacy, from the Gulf. Fox proposed that the two forts could be weakened if not completely destroyed by a mortar barrage, and a relatively small Army force then could assault the weakened forts. Following the reduction of the forts, or even during the army assault, a fleet could steam past them and attack New Orleans directly.
At first, the Army, in the person of General-in-Chief George B. McClellan, opposed the plan. The contingent of 30,000 to 50,000 troops that McClellan considered the minimum needed for success would be a diversion from other Army operations, particularly the Peninsula Campaign against Richmond, Virginia, that he was directing at that time. Army opposition was negated, however, when (Union) Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles coopted the political general Benjamin F. Butler by allowing the expedition to proceed under Butler's name. With Butler's support, Welles was able to persuade President Abraham Lincoln to order the campaign forward. On February 23, 1862, Butler was informed that he was in charge of the land forces "destined to cooperate with the Navy in the attack on New Orleans." The number of troops at his disposal was whittled down appreciably from McClellan's original estimate, to only 18,000.
An organizational change in the Navy had to be made before planning for the campaign could proceed. On December 23, 1861, the Gulf Blockading Squadron was divided into the East Gulf and West Gulf Squadrons. To command the West Gulf Blockading Squadron, Secretary Welles selected Captain David Glasgow Farragut. The new commander arrived at Ship Island, in the Gulf of Mexico, on February 20, 1862; this can be taken as the starting date for the campaign.
Farragut had two problems to deal with in addition to any posed by the Confederates. The first, dealing with Butler and his army, was handled by simply ignoring him; the Army took no further part in his plans. The second was not so easily dismissed; part of Farragut's fleet was a semi-autonomous group of mortar schooners, headed by his foster brother David D. Porter. Porter was a master of intrigue who had the ear of Assistant Secretary Fox, and Farragut had to let the mortars be tried, despite his strong personal belief that they would prove worthless.
In mid-March, Farragut began moving his ships across the bar at the mouth of the river. This was not without incident; the depth of water was found to be only instead of the that was expected. At least one ship that the Administration wanted in the expedition, USS "Colorado", drew too much to get across. To Farragut, the most serious problem presented by the failed effort to bring "Colorado" into the river was not the reduction in the force he had available, but rather the lost time. With "Colorado" subtracted, the fleet inside the bar included six ships and twelve gunboats.
After the warships of the squadron were safely in the river, Porter's 26 mortar schooners and associated vessels were brought in with no problems, beginning on March 18. In the next month, Farragut had to gauge the strength of the forts, find the range of their guns, determine the nature of other obstructions in the channel, place the mortar boats where they would be most effective, and put his warships in battle condition. Working under the intermittent fire of the forts and Confederate gunboats, men of the United States Coast Survey who had been assigned to the Navy went ashore and surveyed the forts from a distance, placing buoys in the river channel to mark where the gunboats should be anchored. On April 18, the preliminaries were completed.
Union chain of command.
In the final days of preparation for his ships to run past the forts, Farragut organized his fleet, dividing it into three sections. (This would not have been at all exceptional in the Royal Navy, where the division of the fleet into the van, main fleet, and the rear was the usual practice, but the United States Navy had not used full fleets before the Civil War.) Command of the first division of gunboats was given to Captain Theodorus Bailey, who was also appointed second in overall command, to take over if Farragut himself were to become incapacitated. Command of the second division of gunboats was given to Captain Henry H. Bell. Farragut retained divisional command of the ships for himself.
Confederate preparations.
From the beginning, plans of the Confederate War Department (Secretary of War Judah P. Benjamin at first, later George W. Randolph) in Richmond for defense of New Orleans were distorted by the belief that the primary threat to the city came from the north. Reflecting that belief, much of the material intended to protect the city was sent to strongpoints on the Mississippi, such as Island Number 10, Fort Pillow, and Memphis. The immediate vicinity of the city was actually weakened as guns were withdrawn for use in distant campaigns, as for example that leading to the Battle of Shiloh. The region was also stripped of men of military age. Confederate Major General Mansfield Lovell, commander of Department No. 1, put much more credence in the buildup in the Gulf than did his distant superiors. Flag Officer George N. Hollins, CSN, in charge of the Confederate naval forces on the Mississippi at the time, personally agreed with Lovell, but his orders did not permit him to act on his beliefs.
Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip were under the local command of Brigadier General Johnson K. Duncan. The average quality of the soldiers in the garrison was probably not as high as Lovell and Duncan would have liked; the most militant had been drawn off for other fields, leaving the irresolute and the unfit. Because New Orleans was something of an international city, the ranks contained a greater proportion of foreign-born soldiers than most units of the Confederate Army. Nevertheless, they could be expected to perform their duty, even if they would not make extraordinary exertions.
The forts around the city were supplemented by two defensive chains stretched across the river to prevent passage. (The chains were sometimes referred to as either 'rafts' or 'booms' in the reports.) One chain was placed above the city, and had no effect on the battle. The other was placed just below the forts, where enemy vessels trying to break it would come under their fire. This barrier was much more important than its counterpart. Originally put in place soon after Lovell took command of the department, it broke under the weight of debris washed down the river in the spring floods. It was repaired, but Lovell did not consider the replacement as good as the original.
Additional defense was provided by several ships and boats that were grouped into three separate organizations, with no common command. The largest of these (by firepower) was a contingent of the Confederate States Navy: three ironclads, , , and ; two more traditional warships, converted from merchantmen, and , and several unarmed support craft. The state of Louisiana furnished two ships of the Louisiana Provisional Navy, and . Last were six cottonclad rams of the River Defense Fleet, nominally a part of the Confederate States Army but commanded by civilian captains and with mostly civilian crews: , , , , , and (also known as "R. J. Breckinridge"). Also present were several tugs and unarmored harbor craft, of which two, and , must be mentioned for the parts they played in the battle.
Confederate naval command.
With three separate organizations in the confined waters of the lower Mississippi, the fleet command situation was already bad enough, but it began to deteriorate further when the buildup of Farragut's fleet in the lower river became apparent. Flag Officer Hollins was at this time near Memphis, which represented the then-northernmost holdings of the Confederacy on the river, and the Confederate War Department insisted that no effort should be spared to maintain possession. Hollins was sure that the threat from the Gulf was much more severe than Richmond thought, so he was prepared to listen when General Lovell pleaded for him to come down to New Orleans to help in its defense. When there, he sent a telegram to Richmond seeking permission to attack Farragut's ships while they were still being lightened to be brought in across the bar. His pleas were so insistent that they virtually amounted to insubordination. Hollins was called to Richmond, ostensibly to serve on an examination board, but in effect to be removed