obstacle lay very near the mouth of
the broad, tawny river that flows for a thousand miles through the
centre of the United States. New Orleans, the greatest city of the
Confederacy, stands on the river's bank, only ninety miles from the
blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The Confederate authorities knew
the value of this great city to their cause, and were careful not to
let it go unprotected. Long before any thought of civil war disturbed
the minds of the people of the United States, the Federal Government
had built below the Crescent City two forts, that peered at each other
across the swift, turbid tide of the Mississippi River. Fort St.
Philip and Fort Jackson they were called, the latter being named in
honor of the stubborn old military hero who beat back the British
soldiers at the close of the war of 1812 on the glorious field of
Chalmette near New Orleans. Fort Jackson was a huge star of stone and
mortar. In its massive walls were great cavernous bomb-proofs in which
the soldiers were secure from bursting shells. It stood back about a
hundred yards from the levee, and its casemates just rose above the
huge dike that keeps the Mississippi in its proper channel. When the
river was high from the spring floods of the north, a steamer floating
on its swift tide towered high above the bastions of the fort. In the
casemates and on the parapets were mounted seventy-five guns of all
calibres. By its peculiar shape and situation on a jutting point of
land, the fort was able to bring its guns to bear upon the river in
three directions.

When the storm of civil war burst upon the country, the Confederates
of New Orleans were prompt to seize this and Fort St. Philip, that
stood on the other side of the river. They found Fort Jackson in the
state of general decay into which most army posts fall in times of
peace, and they set at work at once to strengthen it. All over the
parapet, bomb-proofs, and weak points, bags of sand were piled five or
six feet deep, making the strongest defence known in war. Steamers
plied up and down the river, bringing provision, ammunition, and new
cannon, and soon the fort was ready to stand the most determined
siege. Fort St. Philip, across the river, though not so imposing a
military work, was more powerful. It was built of masonry, and heavily
sodded over all points exposed to fire. It was more irregular in shape
than Fort Jackson, and with its guns seemed to command every point on
the river.