the 20th of February; the rest of the vessels assigned
to his fleet soon followed. Then entering the delta, from that
time he conducted the blockade of the river from the head of the
passes.

The Confederacy was now being so closely pressed in every quarter
as to make it impossible, with the forces at its command, to defend
effectively and at the same moment every point menaced by the troops
and fleets of the Union. Thus the force that might otherwise have
been employed in defending New Orleans was, under the pressure of
the emergency, so heavily drawn from to strengthen the army at
Corinth, then engaged in resisting the southward advance of the
combined armies of the Union under Halleck, as to leave New Orleans,
and indeed all Louisiana, at the mercy of any enemy that should
succeed in passing the river forts. At this time the entire
land-force, under Major-General Mansfield Lovell, hardly exceeded
5,000 men. Of these, 1,100 occupied Forts Jackson and St. Philip,
under the command of General Duncan; 1,200 held the Chalmette line,
under General Martin L. Smith, and about 3,000, chiefly new levies,
badly armed, were in New Orleans. Besides this small land-force,
the floating defences consisted of four improvised vessels of the
Confederate navy, two belonging to the State of Louisiana, and six
others of what was called the Montgomery fleet. These were boats
specially constructed for the defence of the river, but most of
them had been sent up the river to Memphis to hold off Foote and
Davis. The twelve vessels carried in all thirty-eight guns. Each
of the boats of the river-fleet defence had its bows shod with iron
and its engines protected with cotton. This was also the case with
the two sea-going steamers belonging to the State. Of this flotilla
the most powerful was the iron-clad _Louisiana_, whose armor was
found strong enough to turn an 11-inch shell at short range, and,
as her armament consisted of two 7-inch rifles, three 9-inch shell
guns, four 18-inch shell guns, and seven 6-inch rifles, she might
have proved a formidable foe had her engines been equal to their
work.

At the Plaquemine Bend, twenty miles above the head of the passes
and ninety below New Orleans, the engineers of the United States
had constructed two permanent fortifications, designed to defend
the entrance of the river against the foreign enemies of the Union.
These formidable works had now to be passed or taken before New
Orleans c