CHAPTER XXVI.
SOME MORE FRATRICIDAL STRIFE.
The effort to open the Mississippi from the north was seconded by an expedition from the south, in which Captain David G. Farragut, commanding a fleet of forty vessels, co-operated with General Benjamin F. Butler, with the capture of New Orleans as the object.
Mortar-boats covered with green branches for the purpose of fooling the enemy, as no one could tell at any distance at all whether these were or were not olive-branches, steamed up the river and bombarded Forts Jackson and St. Philip till the stunned catfish rose to the surface of the water to inquire, "Why all this?" and turned their pallid stomachs toward the soft Southern zenith. Sixteen thousand eight hundred shells were thrown into the two forts, but that did not capture New Orleans.
Farragut now decided to run his fleet past the defences, and, desperate as the chances were, he started on April 24. A big cable stretched across the river suggested the idea that there was a hostile feeling among the New Orleans people. Five rafts and armed steamers met him, and the iron-plated ram Manassas extended to him a cordial welcome to a wide wet grave with a southern exposure.
Farragut cut through the cable about three o'clock in the morning, practically destroyed the Confederate fleet, and steamed up to the city, which was at his mercy.
The forts, now threatened in the rear by Butler's army, surrendered, and Farragut went up to Baton Rouge and took possession of it. General Butler's occupation at New Orleans has been variously commented upon by both friend and foe, but we are only able to learn from this and the entire record of the war, in fact, that it is better to avoid hostilities unless one is ready to accept the unpleasant features of combat. The author, when a boy, learned this after he had acquired the unpleasant features resulting from combat which the artist has cleverly shown on opposite page.
General Butler said he found it almost impossible to avoid giving offence to the foe, and finally he gave it up in despair.
The French are said to be the politest people on the face of the earth, but no German will admit it; and though the Germans are known to have big, warm, hospitable hearts, since the Franco-Prussian war you couldn't get a Frenchman to admit this.
In February Burnside captured Roanoke Island, and the coast of North Carolina fell into the hands of the Union army. Port Royal became the base of operations against Florida, and at the close of the year 1862 every city on the Atlantic coast except Charleston, Wilmington, and Savannah was held by the Union army.