saw one of Porter's aërolites dropping upon them every minute and a half. They demolished buildings, they tore up the ground, they cut the levee and let in water, and they killed and mangled men; but they did not render the forts untenable nor silence their guns. The return fire sank one of the mortar boats and disabled a steamer. Within the forts about fifty men were killed or wounded—one for every sixteen tons of iron thrown.
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| SHIP ISLAND. |
While the fleet was awaiting the progress of this bombardment, a new danger appeared. The Confederates had prepared several flat-boats loaded with dry wood smeared with tar and turpentine; and they now set fire to them one after another, and let them float down the stream. But Farragut sent out boats' crews to meet them, who grappled them with hooks, and either towed them ashore or conducted them past the fleet, and let them float down through the passes and out to sea.
In his General Orders, Farragut gave so many minute directions that it would seem as if he must have anticipated every possible contingency. Thus: "Trim your vessel a few inches by the head [that is, place the contents so that she will sink a little deeper at the bow than at the stern], so that if she touches the bottom she will not swing head down the river." "Have light Jacob-ladders made, to throw over the side for the use of the carpenters in stopping shot-holes, who are to be supplied with pieces of inch-board, lined with felt, and ordinary nails." "Have a kedge in the mizzen chains on the quarter, with a hawser bent and leading through in the stern chock, ready for any emergency; also grapnels in boats, ready to tow off fire-ships." "Have many tubs of water about the decks, both for extinguishing fire and for drinking." "You will have a spare hawser ready, and when ordered to take in tow your next astern do so, keeping the hawser slack so long as the ship can maintain her own position, having a care not to foul the propeller." It was this minute knowledge and forethought, quite as much as his courage and determination, that insured his success. In addition to his own suggestions he called upon his men to exercise their wits for the occasion, and the crews originated many wise precautions. As the attack was to be in the night, they painted the decks white to enable them to find things. They got out all the spare chains, and hung them up and down the sides of the vessels at the places where they would protect the machinery from the enemy's shot. Farragut's plan was to run by the forts, damaging them as much as possible by a rapid fire as he passed, then destroy or capture the Confederate fleet, and proceed up the river and lay the city under his guns.
The time fixed upon for starting was just before moonrise (3:30 o'clock) in the morning of April 24. On the night of the 20th two gunboats went up the river, and a boat's crew from one of them, under Lieut. Charles H. B. Caldwell, boarded one of the hulks and cut the chain, under a heavy fire, making an opening sufficient for the fleet to pass through. Near midnight of the 23d the lieutenant went up again in a gunboat, to make sure that the passage was still open, and this time the enemy not only fired on him, but sent down blazing rafts and lighted enormous piles of wood that they had prepared near the ends of the chain. The question of moonrise was no longer of the slightest importance, since it was as light as day for miles around. Two red lanterns displayed at the peak of the flag-ship at two o'clock gave the signal for action, and at half-past three the whole fleet was in motion.
The sloop Portsmouth, and Porter's gunboats moved up to a point where they could engage the water-battery of Fort Jackson while the fleet was going by. The first division of eight vessels, commanded by Capt. Theodorus Bailey, who was almost as old and as salt as Farragut, passed through the opening in deliberate fashion, unmindful of a fire from Fort Jackson, ran over to the east bank, and poured grape and canister into Fort St. Philip as they sailed by, and ten minutes afterward found themselves engaged at close quarters with eleven Confederate vessels. Bailey's flag-ship, the Cayuga, was attacked by three at once, all trying to board her. He sent an eleven-inch shot through one of them, and she ran aground and burst into a blaze. With the swivel gun on his forecastle he drove off the second; and he was preparing to board the third when the Oneida and Varuna came to his assistance. The Oneida ran at full speed into one Confederate vessel, cutting it nearly in two, and in an instant making it a shapeless wreck. She fired into others, and then went to the assistance of the Varuna, which had been attacked by two, rammed by both of them, and was now at the shore, where she sank in a few minutes. But she had done effective work before she perished, crippling one enemy so that she surrendered to the Oneida, driving another ashore, and exploding a shell in the boiler of a third. The Pensacola steamed slowly by the forts, doing great execution with her rifled guns, and in turn sustaining the heaviest loss in the fleet—thirty-seven men. In an open field men can dodge a cannon-ball; but when it comes bouncing in at a port-hole unannounced, it sometimes destroys a whole gun's-crew in the twinkling of an eye. In such an action men are under the highest possible excitement; every nerve is awake, and every muscle tense; and when a ball strikes one it completely shatters him, as if he were made of glass, and the shreds are scattered over the ship. The Mississippi sailed up in handsome style, encountered the Confederate ram Manassas, and received a blow that disabled her machinery. But in turn she riddled the ram and set it on fire, so that it drifted away and blew up. The other vessels of this division, with various fortune, passed the forts and participated in the naval battle.
The second division consisted of three sloops of war, the flag-ship leading. The Hartford received and returned a heavy fire from the forts, got aground on a shoal while trying to avoid a fire-raft, and a few minutes later had another raft pushed against her, which set her on fire. A portion of the crew was detailed to extinguish the flames, and all the while her guns were loaded and fired as steadily as if nothing had happened. Presently she was got afloat again, and proceeded up the river, when, suddenly, through the smoke, as it was lighted by the flashes of the guns, she saw a steamer filled with men bearing down upon her, probably with the intention of carrying her by boarding. But a ready gun planted a huge shell in the mysterious stranger, which exploded, and she disappeared—going to the bottom, for aught that anybody knew. The Brooklyn, after getting out of her course and running upon one of the hulks, finally got through, met a large Confederate steamer, and gave it a broadside that set it on fire, and then poured such a rain of shot into St. Philip that the bastions were cleared in a minute, and in the flashes the gunners could be seen running to shelter. A Confederate gunboat that attacked her received eleven shells from her, all of which exploded, and it then ran ashore in flames. The Richmond sailed through steadily and worked her guns regularly, meeting with small loss, because she was more completely provided with splinter-nettings than her consorts, as well as because she came after them.
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| CAPTAIN DAVID G. FARRAGUT. (Afterward Admiral.) |
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| PASSAGE OF THE SECOND DIVISION OF THE FEDERAL SQUADRON BY FORTS JACKSON AND ST. PHILIP. |
The third division consisted of six gunboats. Two of them became entangled among the hulks, and failed to pass. Another received a shot in her boiler, which compelled her to drop down stream and out of the fight. The other three went through in gallant style, both suffering and inflicting considerable loss from continuous firing, and burned two steamboats and drove another ashore before they came up with the advance divisions of the fleet. The entire loss had been thirty-seven killed and one hundred and forty-seven wounded.
Captain Bailey, in the Cayuga, still keeping the lead, found a regiment encamped