National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1881-04-26
PASSING THE FORTS.
COMMODORE cRosBY,s NARRATIVE.
Thrilling Story Of the Battle Before New Or leans
Told by Participant in the Fght-A
Grand and Terrible Night
Scene-Incidents.

SAN, III ASSPOAiSC W gave The
following interesting and thrilling narrative:
The mouth of the river" said the Commodore,
had been very thoroughly INSTRUCTED, and it took
several days for us to get the vessels up through
these. The mortar feet passed in first taking the
ngnt-hand side of the river going up. They bat
tered away at the forts and fired the citadel in
Fort Jackson. The return fire from the forts be-
came very heavy, and it finally became necessary
to move the mortar feet to the other side of the
river under the cover of a neck of woods
which the cOnfederates had failed to clear
away. From this point the fire of the
vessels was again concentrated upon Fort Jack
son, which was holly returned, and one of the
mOrtar-fe was sunk by solid shot from the
fort The mortar fleet was made up of three di-
visions, commanded respectively by Watson
Smith, Kidder Breeze, and W. W. Queen. As the
engagement progressed the fire upon the mortar
fleet became almost unbearable. and orders were
signaled for the gunboat squadron to come up
and draw the fire of the forts much possible.
Another danger was in the fire-rafts which the
enemy sent down constantly, and it was lively
work at times to get our vessels out of the way.
The gunboats drew the fire of Fort Jackson Fort
ST. Philip, and another fort, the name of which
do not remember. After
STEADY AND HEAVY COMMANDMENT
for six seven days the maSts of two of the gun
boats, the Itasca and the Pamela were taken out.
The Itasca was commanded by Lieutenant c. H. B.
Caldwell, the Pamela by Lieutenant Crosby myself),
and both vessels were under the orders of Captain
Bell, who was the admirals chief of staff We re-
cevcd orders to proceed pthe river under cover of
the darkness, and endeayOr to break through the
barrier chains, which were stretched from shore to
shore and supported at intervals the river by
SchoonerS. The Itasca took the right hand side of
the river, going up, and the Pamela the left, the
of the latter taking her directly under the
guns of Fort Jackson. The night was
so very dark, that in going up ran aground
just under Fort Jackson, and as soon as we
struck the enemy opened on us. In the mean
time and prior to our start, the fire of the
whole mortar fleet had been concentrated upon
the fort, and we lay there striving to get off
many of our own shells dropped very near to the
PinOla As we showed no lights the fire from the
fort passed over us, and, in point of fact we were
in some jeopardy from the shells from our friends ;
but strange as it may seem, this tended only to
courage every man. for we all felt the comfortable
reflection that our forces were doing their utmost
to assist our movement Finally. we succeeded in
getting afiOat and backing out of
OUR DANGEROUS POSITION,
and it was not many minutes until we were along
side of one of the schoonerS that supported the
barrier chains. Here commenced the real work of
our expedition. We took large torpedoes and fixed
them to the fastenings of the chain, placed several
in the hold of the vessel and attached others to
her plankins outside After this was done we had
to work like beavers to get our vessel clear from
the schooner, with which we were very badly
fOuled. This accomplished, we moved away (far
enough for safety from the explosion. but when
we attempted to fire the torpedoes we were dis
mayed to find that the wires had parted. As we
were moving back to the schooner to repair the
wires boat came alongside from the Itasca and
reported that vessel hard and fast ashore
but stated that they had found and cast off the
shore ends of the chains The boat returned and
we again renewed our efforts to get alongside the
schooner to blow her up. At this juncture another
boat came to US from the Itasca saying that she
was still ashore, and could not get off, but that
there was clear passage through the barrier on
that side. This being a sufficient accomplishment
of our mission steamed slowly over to the Itasca
and up through the opening in the chains
between her and the fort. Here we got out two
hawSers, and after making them fast to the Itasca
endeavored to pull her OFF. Both lines parted, and
we again steamed up through the barrier, and as
LAST RESORT,
got out our largest stream cable. Sending small
line to the grounded ship we made the end of it
fast to this stream cable and paved away holding
our own vessel in position until an answering
shout announced that the end of the cable had
been received on board the Itasca and made fast
At this signal we steamed slowly ahead to get the
cable taught, and put the helm hard to starboard
to sheer our vessel out into the stream, where we
could get the full force of the current added to the
weight of the ship and the power of her ma
chnery, in this last effort to relieve distressed
cOnsort. 1t was very anxious moment to me-
As the full strain came upon the cable it
stretched until its size appeared to be reduced one
half, and each moment it seemed to be almost
ready to part Suddenly it began to regain its size
and all hands drew a long breath of relief for we
knew that the line had done its work nobly and
the old Itasca was saved. As we moved off we
found the vessel was coming across one of the
schoonerS, and we were obliged to cut the line and
send the Itasca adrift By this time the moon was
coming up, and it not practical for us to pro-
coed further in the work of destroying the
schoOnerS, especially as we had already opened a
passage-way through the chains.
Although we worked hard to break the barrier
where struck the Iasca and her crew belongs
the credit for opening way through the chains
After some days, the barrier being then paSSable,
and as soon as the necessary preparations could be
made, the feet passed up and ran the gauntlet of
the forts In doing this we were organized into
three divisions starboard, port and centre Bailey
commanded the starboard division, Farragut the
port, and Bell the centre As we started up the
river we had the assistance of Admiral Porter's
mortar feet and the other vessels attached to his
fOtilla. At the signal we steamed away
THROUGH THE DARKNESS
and the fighting became general on both Sides
The night was so intensely black that we were
compelled to guide ourselves more or less by the
flashes of the guns of the fort and batteries. We
passed within about one hundred yards of Fort
st. Philip, and in this way escaped great deal of
the damage from their fire. as they almost invaria-
bly, overshot us. The enemy's guns were holly
served, however, and the air was filled with hurt
ling iron, as We plOughed our way up the stream
and by the Notifications which the English and
French officers, who, from their ships in the ofng
had been permitted to go up to the forts for the
purpose of communicating with the consuls of
their respective nations, had said could not be
passed by any feet that ever ioated. As we
emerged from the
HEAVY FIRE AND SMOKE
and shot up the river and beyond the barrier we
found Captain now AdmiraD Boggs with the
Varuna who had sunk three of the enemys YES
sells, and then been forced TO run his own ship
ashore as she was sinking. Weanchored here short
time to bury the dead, and then continued on to
English Bend, where we remained until next
morning. The next point reached was the bat
teries at Chalmette, which, after brisk cannonade
ofabout twenty minutes duration, were abandoned
by the confederates. The news that our feet had
passed the forts had been telegraphed up to the
city of New Orleans, and on our way up the river
we passed many vessels laden with cotton that had
been fired and set adrift. believe the only YES
sci of the enemy that escaped was the Webb, very
fast steamer, which got away and took refuge in
the Red River from which she afterward gave our
forces great deal of trouble, until she finally
burned by her own crew. When our squadron
anchored in front of New Orleans we found
VESSELS BURNING
in all directions; the unfinished ironclads of the
enemy were blazing, and on shore the flames were
devouring huge piles of cotton, which had been
fired to prevent its falling into our hands All the
inhabitants of the city of New Orleans appeared to