ity against the possibility of any fleet passing the
forts at night or through fog, the channel of the river between Forts
Jackson and St. Phillip was securely closed. Eleven dismasted schooners
were moored in line across the river and secured by six heavy chains.
These chains formed an unbroken obstruction from shore to shore.

This raft was placed immediately below the forts.

There was no serious alarm in the city on the appearance of the fleet in
the mouth of the river. For months they had been cruising about the Gulf
of Mexico without apparent decision.

The people laughed at their enemy. There was but one verdict:

"They'll think twice before attempting to repeat the scenes of 1812."

Not only were the two great forts impregnable but the shores were lined
with batteries. What could wooden ships do with such forts and guns? It
was a joke that they should pretend to attack them. Their only possible
danger was from the new iron-clad gunboats in the upper waters of the
river. They were building two of their own kind which would be ready
long before the enemy could break through the defenses from the North.

When Farragut stripped his fleet for action and moved toward the forts
on the sixteenth of April, New Orleans was the gayest city in America.
The spirit of festivity was universal. Balls, theaters, operas were the
order of the day. Gay parties of young people flocked down the river and
swarmed the levees to witness the fun of the foolish attempt of a lot of
old wooden ships to reduce the great forts.

The guns were roaring now their mighty anthem. Ships and forts--forts
and ships. The batteries of Farragut's mortar schooners were hurling
their eleven-inch shells with harmless inaccuracy.

The people laughed again.

For six days the earth trembled beneath the fierce bombardment. The
fleet had thrown twenty-five thousand shells and General Duncan reported
but two guns dismantled, with half a dozen men killed and wounded. The
forts stood grim and terrible, their bristling line of black-lipped guns
unbroken, their defenses as strong as when the first shot was fired.

On the evening of April twenty-third, the fire of the fleet slackened.
Farragut had given up the foolish attempt, of course. He had undertaken
the impossible and at last had accepted the fact.

But the people of New Orleans had not reckoned on the character of the
daring commander of the Federal fleet. He coolly decided that since he
could not s