Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 12.djvu/69

Rh This was particularly unfortunate, for it must naturally have discouraged both the soldiers in the forts and the sailors in the squadron. The situation of Commodore Mitchell with a helpless flagship and an insubordinate set of steamboat captains commanding his most effective vessels—the rams—was not an enviable one.

Fire rafts were sent down the river every night; but, as Captain Mahan says, "these were productive of no serious damage beyond collisions arising from them . . . and the special mistake was made of sending only one at a time instead of a number, to increase the confusion and embarrassment of the ships." Unfortunately, on the night the enemy's fleet passed the forts, no fire raft was sent down to light up the river, and General Duncan was justified in complaining of it. There was a want of organization and discipline, but Commodore Mitchell cannot be held responsible for it, as he took command of the Louisiana on the 20th of April, only four days before the enemy's ships passed. The want of proper preparation at New Orleans may fairly be attributed to a mistake of the secretary of the navy, who could not disabuse his mind of the idea that New Orleans would be attacked by the fleet above, instead of the fleet below. And he clung to this idea until the last hour, as evidenced by his ordering the Louisiana to Fort Pillow as late as April 10th.

While the mortar schooners were bombarding Fort Jackson daily from the i8th to the 23d, Farragut's ships were "stripping for a fight," and the skill and ingenuity displayed are well worth the study of young naval officers. Captain Mahan says: "The chain cables of the sheet anchors had been secured up and down the sides of the vessels, abreast the engines, to resist the impact of projectiles, . . . and each commander further protected those vital parts from shots coming in forward or aft, with hammocks, bags of coal, or sand, or ashes, or whatever else came to hand. The outside paint was daubed over