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“Anchor and assemble the flotilla,” Farragut said to his second in command.
It was no secret that Farragut’s fleet was preparing to attempt a run up the Mississippi River. On April 1, rebel spies reported that all but two of the vessels had crossed the bar and were now in the river. In New Orleans, work proceeded around the clock to finish the Confederate ironclads Louisiana and Mississippi.
Louisiana was a large vessel, 264 feet in length with a 62-foot beam. Her armament was to consist of a pair of 7-inch rifled guns, a trio of 9-inch shell guns, a quadrant of 8-inch shell guns, and seven 32-pounders. Mississippi was no less a vessel. Some 260 feet in length with a beam of 53 feet 8 inches, she was due to carry a battery of twenty guns of various sizes.
The problem was that the two ships were far from final commissioning.
Atop the ramparts of Fort Jackson, Delbert Antoine stared west at the red sunset. The sight was unsettling to the native Louisianian, and he shared his feelings with his partner, Preston Kimble. The date was the eighteenth of April.
“The red of the sky,” Antoine said, “looks like blood.”
Kimble leaned over to spit off the brick walkway atop the parapet into the moat below. “If our guns don’t sink the Yankees,” Kimble said, “that gator in the moat will eat them.”
Both Kimble and Antoine were early conscripts to the cause. They were dressed in early Confederate gray wool uniforms, now showing wear. Antoine’s eyes sca
In the area of the sixteen heavy guns that pointed toward the water, the brick had been reinforced with thick granite slabs. Inside the center of the fort was a diagonal-shaped defensive barracks where five hundred men could take shelter during bombardments. The sight of the substantial construction gave Antoine little comfort.
“They’re coming for us,” Antoine said. “I can feel it.”
“We’ll blow them out of the water,” Kimble said, “like shooting ducks in a pond.”
Antoine nodded. But he knew his friend’s words were just bluster. If Kimble wasn’t afraid, he was just plain stupid — or crazy.
A few miles down the river from Fort Jackson, around a bend and tied to the shore, Franklin Dodd checked the lines holding his barge to the trees. It was dark, and a stiff wind was blowing. Even so, thousands of frogs were croaking, and the sound was making Dodd angry.
“Damn frogs,” he said to powder monkey Mark Hallet.
“They’ll hush up when we start firing,” Hallet noted.
An assignment to one of the numerous mortar boats was not a job relished by a Union sailor. Their job was to soften up the forts before Farragut and his ships made their run upriver. The crews’ job was simple. They would load their gun, then stand with mouth agape to avoid having their eardrums blown out. The gun would fire, then they would reload and fire again. Hundreds upon hundreds of times, the exercise would be repeated. By the end of the war, most of the crews would find themselves deaf.
Early on the morning of April 19, the mortar boats opened fire.
The first round slammed into the base of Fort Jackson. For five days the barrage would keep up around the clock. By noon of the first, half the Confederates were trembling.
Hallet poured a powder charge into the mortar. For the last few days, he had felt a pressure in his head he could not shake. He would yawn and that would relieve the pressure some, but still it always returned. He felt a hand on his arm and stared at Dodd. His friend’s mouth was moving, but Hallet could not make out the words. Wiping some powder from his blackened face with a rag, he put his ear next to Dodd’s mouth. He could smell Dodd’s breath, and it was not pleasant.
“The word is Farragut’s making his run tonight,” Dodd shouted.
Hallet smiled at the words, but he was worried. He had been unable to stop his body from shaking for the last two days. The only thing that brought him relief was rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. So he rocked until the gun fired. Then he ran over and set another powder charge.
On Manassas, Lieutenant Warley knew the Union was coming. He reasoned that the first order of business for the Federals would be to send a couple of boats upriver to try to breach the chain obstruction stretching across the river. The problem was that Manassas was still upriver.
The last few months had reinforced Warley’s opinion of Manassas. The vessel was underpowered, lightly armored, and poor-handling. Even so, if Warley sighted an enemy ship, he was ready to ram her. For the coming battle, Warley could count on little help. Louisiana and Mississippi were still not fully operational. Both had been towed down from New Orleans and were now anchored by the forts to be used as floating gun batteries.
The Union gunboats Pinola and Itasca had been tasked with blowing the Confederate chain obstruction. Sneaking upriver, a crew from Itasca rowed a small boat to the obstruction and attached an explosive charge. The charge failed to explode. Luckily, one of the gunboats fouled itself in the chain and, attempting to free itself, pulled the chain apart, creating an opening large enough for the Union fleet to breach.
The Mississippi was open, but the Union navy faced a gauntlet of murderous fire.
On April 23, Manassas and her tender, Phoenix, arrived off the forts. Shells were still raining down from the mortar boats as Warley maneuvered into place. So far, Fort Jackson had been the hardest hit. Through the smoke, Warley could see that parts of her outer wall were pocked from the rain of shells. Continuing to scan the fort with his spyglass, he could see the Confederate flag still flying atop the pole.
Just then, one of the Fort Jackson guns returned fire.
April 23 melded into April 24. Admiral Farragut rolled his charts and stared at the men around the table in his stateroom aboard his flagship Hartford “Are there any more questions?” Farragut asked.
The men shook their heads in the negative.
“Then we go at my signal,” he said quietly.
The men filtered off to return to their commands and a strange quiet.
Just past 2 A.M., two red lanterns were hoisted atop the mizzen peak of Hartford.
From this point forward, there was no turning back.
Manassas was tied to the bank just off Fort St. Philip; because of earlier problems, she now sported but a single smokestack, but that had failed to solve all her problems. Earlier, the ship’s engineer had reported a balky condenser. Warley ordered it changed before the battle. The pilot was testing the steam power as Warley paced the decks.
“Is the gun crew ready?” he shouted to Lieutenant Reed.
“Yes, sir,” Reed said. “I checked with them a half hour ago, as you instructed.”
“Fireman and black gang?”
“All in place. The condenser is repaired — they’re making steam,” Reed noted.
“Are the steam and water ports operational?” Warley asked.
“If we need to repel boarders,” Reed said, “they’ll be in for a shock.”
Just then, the pilot interrupted.
“Sir, we have steam in the boiler and power to the propeller,” he said.
“Then cast us off,” Warley said.
The barrage from the mortar boats increased. Delbert Antoine peered through the gloom for signs of the Union navy. The air was thick with the smell of spent powder and brick dust. The temperature was cool, like the inside of a tomb.