page_title: Battle of Forts Jackson and St. Philip
section_title: Second phase: passing the forts
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of Forts Jackson and St. Philip / Battle / Second phase: passing the forts
caption_attribution_description: English: During the Battle of Forts Jackson and St. Philip, the Confederate tug CSS Mosher pushes a fire raft against USS Hartford.
context_page_description: The Battle of Forts Jackson and St. Philip was the decisive battle for possession of New Orleans in the American Civil War. The two Confederate forts on the Mississippi River south of the city were attacked by a Union Navy fleet. As long as the forts could keep the Federal forces from moving on the city, it was safe, but if they were negated, there were no fall-back positions to impede the Union advance.
  New Orleans, the largest city in the Confederacy, was already under threat of attack from the north when David Farragut moved his fleet into the river from the south. The Confederate Navy had already driven off the Union blockade fleet in the Battle of the Head of Passes the previous October. Although the Union threat from upriver was geographically more remote than that from the Gulf of Mexico, a series of losses in Kentucky and Tennessee had forced the War and Navy Departments in Richmond to strip the region of much of its defenses. Men and equipment had been withdrawn from the local defenses, so that by mid-April almost nothing remained to the south except the two forts and an assortment of gunboats of questionable worth.
context_section_description: Having resolved to pass the forts, Farragut somewhat modified his fleet arrangements by adding two ships to Captain Bailey's first section of gunboats, thereby eliminating one of his ship sections. After the alteration, the fleet disposition was as follows:
  First section, Captain Theodorus Bailey: USS Cayuga, Pensacola (ship), USS Mississippi, Oneida, Varuna, Katahdin, Kineo, and Wissahickon.
  Second section (ships), Flag Officer Farragut: USS Hartford, Brooklyn, and Richmond.
  Third section, Captain Henry H. Bell: USS Sciota, Iroquois, Kennebec, Pinola, Itasca, and Winona.
  The ship Portsmouth was left to protect the mortar schooners.
  When passing the forts, the fleet was to form two columns. The starboard column would fire on Fort St. Philip, while the port column would fire on Fort Jackson. They were not to stop and slug it out with the forts, however, but to pass by as quickly as possible. Farragut hoped that the combination of darkness and smoke would obscure the aim of the gunners in the forts, and his vessels could pass by relatively unscathed.
  At approximately 03:00 on April 24, the fleet got under way and headed for the gap in the chain that had blocked the channel. Soon after passing that obstacle, they were spotted by men in the forts, which promptly opened up with all their available firepower. As Farragut had hoped, however, their aim was poor, and his fleet suffered little significant damage. His own gunners' aim was no better, of course, and the forts likewise sustained little damage. The last three gunboats in the column were turned back. Itasca was disabled by a shot in her boilers and drifted out of action; the others (Pinola and Winona) turned back because dawn was breaking and not because of Rebel gun practice.
  The Confederate fleet did very little in this stage of the battle. CSS Louisiana was finally able to use her guns, but with little effect. The armored ram CSS Manassas came in early and tried to engage the enemy, but the gunners in the forts made no distinction between Manassas and members of the Federal fleet, firing on friend and foe indiscriminately. Her captain, Lieutenant Commanding Alexander F. Warley, therefore took his vessel back up the river, to attack when he would be fired upon by only the Union fleet.
  Once past the forts, the head of the Federal column came under attack by some of the Confederate ships, while some of the vessels further back in the column were still under the fire of the forts. Because of their fragmented command structure, the Confederate ships did not coordinate their movements, so the battle degenerated to a jumble of individual ship-on-ship encounters.
  CSS Manassas rammed both USS Mississippi and USS Brooklyn, but did not disable either. As dawn broke, she found herself caught between two Union ships and was able to attack neither, so Captain Warley ordered her run ashore. The crew abandoned the vessel and set her afire. Later, she floated free from the bank, still afire, and finally sank in view of Porter's mortar schooners.
  Tug CSS Mosher pushed a fire raft against the flagship USS Hartford, and was rewarded for her daring by a broadside from the latter that sent her to the bottom. Hartford, while attempting to avoid the fire raft, ran ashore not far upstream from Fort St. Philip. Although she was then within range of the guns of the fort, they could not be brought to bear, so the flagship was able to extinguish the flames and work her way off the bank with little significant damage.
  In getting under way, Governor Moore was fouled by and ran into the Confederate tug Belle Algerine, sinking her.  Attacking the Union fleet, she found USS Varuna ahead of the rest of the fleet. A long chase ensued, both ships firing on each other as Governor Moore pursued the Federal vessel. Despite losing a large part of her crew during the chase, she was eventually able to ram Varuna. The cottonclad ram Stonewall Jackson, of the River Defense Fleet also managed to ram. Varuna was able to reach shallow water near the bank before she sank, the only vessel lost from the attacking fle
caption: Mosher pushes the fire raft against Hartford.
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