t Fortress Monroe for the mouth of the Mississippi, commanded by
Commodore Farragut. It consisted of 16 gunboats, 21 mortar-schooners,
six sloops of war, and five other vessels. Fifteen thousand land troops,
under General Butler, soon followed. Thirty miles below New Orleans
Forts Jackson and St. Philip, mounting 100 guns, frowned at each other
across the Mississippi. Farragut's fleet sailed up the river and the
mortar-schooners were moored to the banks within range of the forts.
Boughs were tied to the top-masts so that the enemy could not
distinguish them from the trees along the shore. April 18th the mortars
began shelling the forts. An incessant fire was kept up night and day,
for six days, till nearly 6,000 shells had been thrown.

[Illustration: Map.]
Memphis to Iuka. 1862.

As the forts sustained little damage, Farragut decided to run the
batteries. A gunboat stole up by night and cut the boom of hulks chained
together, which crossed the river just below the forts. Some of the
boats were rubbed over with mud to make them invisible, and chain cables
hung over the sides to protect the engines. About half past two in the
night of April 23d the fleet moved up the river through the gap in the
boom. The enemy, on the alert, launched fire-rafts and lit bonfires to
lift the cover of night. Old Jackson and St. Philip poured a hot fire
into the fleet as vessel after vessel slowly steamed past, answering
with its most spiteful broadsides.

But the Union craft had more than the forts against them. Once past the
boom they were in the midst of a hostile fleet of fifteen vessels,
including a dangerous ironclad ram. A fierce water-fight followed. The
Union Varuna was sunk; the flag-ship Hartford set on fire by one of the
fire-rafts. The flames, however, were soon put out. Other vessels were
disabled. But every one of the Confederate ships was captured or
destroyed, and Jackson and St. Philip had to surrender. Farragut then
sailed up the river and took possession of New Orleans without
resistance. Butler at once occupied the city with his troops, and the
Stars and Stripes again waved over the Crescent City. Since that
eventful day New Orleans has never been in disunionist hands.

After the battle of Pittsburg Landing, Halleck himself came down from
St. Louis, and took the reins. Grant was nominally in command under him,
but had next to nothing to do. Re-enforced by 25,000 men under Pope,
Halleck slowly advanced toward Corin