Capture of New Orleans

DESCRIPTION: "Come all you Union-loving men, wherever you may be." The singer will tell of the Union capture of New Orleans. The song details the maneuvers of the fleet as they pass the Mississippi River defenses. The _Brooklyn_ is a proud part of the fleet
AUTHOR: William Densmore of the _Brooklyn_
EARLIEST DATE: 2008 (Cohen); probably written in 1862
KEYWORDS: Civilwar navy battle river patriotic
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
Apr 24, 1862 - David Farragut's Union fleet runs the Mississippi past the Confederate Forts St. Philip and Jackson
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Cohen-AmericanFolkSongsARegionalEncyclopedia1, pp. 344-347, "Capture of New Orleans" (1 text plus a reduced copy of the original broadside)
Wolf-AmericanSongSheets, #249, p. 18, "Capture of New Orleans" (1 reference)
Roud #V40596
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The New Ballad of Lord Lovell (Mansfield Lovell)" (subject of the capture of New Orleans)
NOTES [4316 words]: For background on the capture of New Orleans, see the notes to "The New Ballad of Lord Lovell (Mansfield Lovell)."
This song was probably written in 1862, because of its mention of George McClellan, It is effectively certain that it was in existence by 1870, given that it is mentioned on p. 19 of Edwin Wolf 2nd, American Song Sheets, Slip Ballads, and Political Broadsides 1850-1870, Library Company of Philadelphia, 1963.
The Brooklyn, the subject of this broadside, was to have a long career. Silverstone, p. 25, says she was a screw sloop with a displacement of about 2500 tones, 233 feet long at the waterline and 43 feet wide, which drew 16 feet three inches of water. Her crew is listed as 335, and her two engines and single screw gave her a top speed of 11.5 knots. She was laid down in 1857, launched in 1858, commissioned on January 26, 1859. She was slightly smaller than her near-contemporaries and frequent fleet-mates the Hartford (Admiral Farragut's flagship) and the Richmond. (None of those ships was particularly large -- the famous Merrimack and her sisters were about 4500 tons displacement. But those big ships all drew more than twenty feet of water; they were too large to ascend the Mississippi. Farragut had one ship of that class, the Colorado; he had to leave her in the Gulf of Mexico, according to Fowler, p. 116.)
She would serve in most of the major naval engagements of the war, including the attack on New Orleans described in this song, Farragut's attack on Vicksburg in 1862, the attacks on Galveston, Texas in early 1863, the Battle of Mobile Bay in 1864, and the attacks on Fort Fisher in North Carolina in late 1864 and early 1865, She continued in service until decommissioned in 1889; she was sold in 1891.
Thus her career was long and distinguished, but at the time of the assault on New Orleans, she seemed to be under a bit of a jinx. At the very beginning of the Lincoln administration, it had been suggested that she take supplied to Fort Sumter. But that idea was abandoned because they weren't sure a ship her size could get close to the fort (Stern, p. 20). So she was sent to bring troops to the garrison of Fort Pickens in Pensacola, Florida -- but her Captain initially refused to do so because the orders for the landing came from the army and not the Navy Department (McPherson, p. 17. One wonders what the Captain though the soldiers were there for...). In June, she was blockading the mouths of the Mississippi, and let herself be distracted by a blockade runner; this let the Confederate raider Sumter escape her and go to sea, causing much more damage to the Union cause than one blockade runner ever could have (McPherson, pp. 22-23).
The escape of the Sumter demonstrated a problem with the Federal blockade of New Orleans. It was just too easy for a ship to evade blockaders. There were four different routes to escape -- down the two deep-water passes of the Mississippi, across Lake Ponchartrain, and across Lake Borgne; some small boats could also travel around New Orleans via the Atchafalaya River (McPherson, p. 55). None of these routes could accommodate the largest ships of the day, but they left the Federals trying to guard an arc that was fifty-odd miles long, and do it with no local base. It was impossible.
Even trying to close off the Head of the Passes had proved problematic, for several reasons. First, the three main passes had depths of about seventeen, thirteen, and six feet (Fowler, p. 96); a full-size vessel could not get through to stand guard. And once a ship did get there, there was almost no room to maneuver. The Confederates on at least one occasion had taken advantage, sending down a tiny ironclad ram called the Manassas which had badly damaged the Richmond before heading back up-river (Stern, p. 44); in the ensuing hoopla, the Vincennes also ran aground (McPherson, pp. 55-56). And the ships guarding the passage had no speed, while the ships coming down from New Orleans had the river's current to give them a speed boost. Unless a Federal ship was in exactly the right position, a blockade runner could come down and scoot down one of the passages before the Federal ships could get up steam to maneuver.
The only way to close off the Mississippi River traffic was to capture New Orleans itself. And, unlike the Union Army, the Union Navy from the very start of the war was pretty good at making plans. By the summer of 1861, a staff group had produced a broad strategy: While the Navy assembled ships to strengthen the blockade, it would also establish bases along the Confederate coast that would let steamers stay close to the ports they were blockading. Once that was done, they would gradually tighten the screws on the ports themselves (McPherson, p. 35).
In the Gulf of Mexico, the chosen base was Ship Island, about five miles south of Biloxi. Mississippi. This was a long way from the existing naval base at Key West, Florida, and it was actually north of New Orleans, but it was still a good base, because it was about half way between the two Gulf port of New Orleans and Mobile, as well as being close enough to provide help to Fort Pickens outside Pensacola should it be needed there.
(The Federals had almost lost Key West itself: "Early on the Union had had a stroke of good fortune when Lieutenant Tunis Augustus MacDonough Craven, commanding the USS Crusader, arrived at Key West on 25 March 1961. He found the town 'filled by violent disunionists,' but thanks to his determined show of force, the town stayed in Union hands. By 19 April, when Lincoln proclaimed his blockade, Key West was the only secure port on the entire Gulf coast available to Union forces"; Fowler, p. 94. Remember that name "Craven"; we will be hearing more from that family.)
With Ship Island in navy hands, the government had to pick an officer to command the squadron based there. The navy at this time had no admirals; the regulations permitted no rank above Captain. Which meant that senior Captains often were given commands for which they were no longer suited, because there was no way to promote someone above them. The Navy Department's short-term expedient was to declare certain Captains to be "Flag Officers." The one chosen by Navy Secretary Gideon Welles for the western Gulf squadron was an obscure southerner by the name of David Glasgow Farragut, who was just #37 on the naval seniority list (Anderson, p. 118). People at the time questioned Welles's choice, but the results clearly justified his decision (McPherson, p. 36). Farragut received his formal orders to attack New Orleans in January 1862 (Anderson, p. 118).
The fleet that went up the Mississippi had two parts. One consisted of conventional warships, the other a fleet of mortar boats to assault the forts from a long distance. The mortar vessels were under the command of David Dixon Porter, who had been chosen before Farragut and who claimed to have had some part in the expedition planning (although he was a self-aggrandizer whose word is not reliable). He and Farragut went back many years; Farragut had served under Porter's father "and had become, for all practical purposes, a member of the Porter family" (Anderson, p. 118).
Getting all the Federal ships into the Mississippi at Head of the Passes took until April 15, 1862 (Anderson, p. 119). it was very hard to get the larger ships through the passes -- indeed, the Brooklyn went aground for a time as she tried to reach the rendezvous, and it took a lot of work to lighten some of the other ships (Fowler, pp. 116-117).
The Union expedition had three semi-independent parts, the Army force (some 15,000-18,000 troops under general Benjamin Butler; Fowler, p. 109), the force of mortar boats under Porter, and Farragut's own larger ships. The mortar boats -- some twenty of them -- were schooners specially prepared to carry 13-inch mortars firing 216-pound shells (McPherson, p. 56).
The Confederates were well aware that Union ships might come up the Mississippi to try to interfere with the Port of New Orleans. They started putting together such ships as they could to defend the river, and set up defenses well downstream of the city. Seventy miles downstream was an old fort, Fort St. Philip, which had stood off the British in 1815; it was on the north bank of the river, which curved here so that it flowed rough west to east (Fowler, p. 96). The newer Fort Jackson had been built across the river from it; both were built up to defend the passage, and chains and hulks were set up to prevent Union ships from passing the forts (Stern, p. 97). The two forts had 126 guns to defend themselves (McPherson, p. 57).
The Confederates had eight small conventional ships, plus the little ram Manassas, to help with the defense (at least, McPherson counts eight; Stern, p. 98, counts eleven plus auxiliaries). They had been trying to prepare two ironclads, the Louisiana and Mississippi, but they hadn't had enough skilled workers to finish them in time. The Louisiana was towed into place to serve as a floating battery, but she could not move on her own (McPherson, p. 57).
Farragut prepared thoroughly -- so thoroughly that it irritated Washington. He wanted more of everything -- coal, ships, ammunition (Fowler, p. 109). He had one of his vessels prepared to serve as a hospital ship.
The Confederates had their own troubles, starting with the fact that they had a divided command; New Orleans was commanded by Mansfield Lovell, the forts downstream by Johnson Kelly Duncan, and the ships had still other commanders (Fowler, p. 113). This would mean the defense was not entirely coordinated.
The Union forces would not attempt to achieve surprise. The use of the mortar boats to try to reduce the forts would see to that! Six of them were based on the left (north) bank to attack Fort St. Philip; the rest on the right bank to go after Fort Jackson (Anderson, p. 119). They fired a tremendous number of shells, but they didn't disable the forts (McPherson, p. 58); a bombardment that was supposed to finish in a couple of days went on for five without putting the forts out of action (Anderson, p. 120. Fowler, p. 118, estimates that 7500 shells were fired at the forts, and roughly 4400 were aimed well enough to hit, but because the fuses of the period were timed fuses which could be set only approximately, most of the shells exploded too early or too late. According to Anderson, p. 126, Fort Jackson had only nine killed and 33 wounded). Eventually Farragut concluded that more would have to be done. A Council of War wanted to give the mortars more time, but when Farragut pointed out that the supply of mortar shells was getting low, the captains agreed to a change of plans (McPherson, p. 60).
The goal of the fleet was to run past the two Confederate forts, and Farragut gave careful orders to prepare the ships -- e.g. hanging anchor chains over the side as a primitive form of armor; putting sandbags in the bows; trimming the boats so they were more likely to go in the proper direction (McPherson, p. 57; Stern, p. 98).
Farragut's fleet had seventeen major warships, organized in three divisions. The second division had the heaviest ships of all. Farragut's flagship Hartford led the second division, followed by the Brooklyn (the subject of this song) and the Richmond. Six smaller gunboats made up the third division (Anderson, p. 121; map on p. 59 of McPherson shows the full order).
By the time the fleet made its run, the Union forces had cleared a gap in the Confederate barricade, unhooking one chain and breaking another (McPherson, p. 59). At 2:00 a.m. on April 24, Farragut gave the order for the fleet to run past the forts (Anderson, p. 21); the passage began around 3:30 (Stern, p. 98)..
The Confederate forts and fleet soon went into action against the small ships of Farragut's first division. Several Union ships were damaged and the Varuna was rammed and sunk (McPherson, pp. 60-61), but the Confederate forces were also badly battered -- seven ships plus the Manassas sunk and one other captured.
Still, one of the Confederate ships, the Mosher, managed to get close enough to the Hartford to launch a fire raft at the flagship, which had briefly run aground (McPherson, pp. 62-63). The Hartford was in genuine danger, but the Brooklyn moved up to cover the flagship until the fires were out and the raft cleared away. Then the Hartford sank the Mosher with all hands lost (Stern, p. 99).
By about 4:45 the Union fleet was past the blockade. Three ships failed to make it due to running aground or being fouled by the remaining obstructions, and every ship had taken at least one hit; the Hartford supposedly suffered 32. But casualties in the fleet were relatively light -- 37 killed, 146 wounded (Anderson, p. 124). And the biggest ships at the heart of the fleet -- the Hartford herself, the Brooklyn, and the Richmond -- all made it.
It took the fleet another day to reach New Orleans -- time which the locals used to burn cotton and other supplies (Anderson, pp. 124-125). Confederate troops left the city, but no local official was ready to formally surrender (the mayor and city council in effect said, "Go ahead, occupy us," but eventually Butler's troops showed up and there was nothing the locals could do but complain (Anderson, p. 125; Stern, p. 100).
Forts Jackson and St. Philip had not been captured or destroyed; they had merely been passed. But the garrison at Fort Jacskon mutinied rather than continue fighting, and when Butler's armies approached, the two surrendered on April 28 (McPherson, p. 65; Stern, p. 101). The Confederates destroyed the Louisiana and Mississippi to prevent their capture.
The captain of the Brooklyn at this time was Thomas Craven, the brother of the aforementioned T. A. M. Craven. He had not wanted to run the forts, and he considered the plan "desperate," but afterward he called the victory "brilliant" (McPherson, p. 64) -- though he complained in a letter to his wife that the ships that did the hard work weren't getting proper credit (Fowler, p. 127). Happily, credit eventually went to Farragut and his fleet rather than to Porter or Butler.
Soon after, Farragut sent Craven and the Brooklyn to Baton Rouge, which gave in with bad grace (Fowler, p. 129).
One of the heroes on the Confederate side would be a young fellow named Charles W. Read, who took command of the McRae after her commander was mortally wounded; for his future story, see the notes to "The Florida's Cruise." Read and the Brooklyn would meet again; the Brooklyn was blockading Mobile, Alabama, when the Florida broke out; indeed, the Brooklyn had the chance to stop the Florida, but failed to fire on her (Stern, p. 128).
It was lucky for the Florida that Mobile had remained in Confederate hands. Farragut had wanted to go after Mobile after taking New Orleans, but Washington wanted him to go on up the river and try to deal with Vicksburg (McPherson, p. 68). That failed -- Vicksburg was simply too tough a nut for medium-weight ships to hurt her, and the defenders planted powerful cannon on her high bluffs that the ship's guns simply could not reach (Anderson, p. 129). In fact, Farragut went there twice, with no luck either time; on the second occasion, the fleet managed to pass Vicksburg, but they couldn't do any more there than below the city! (Anderson, p. 131). Farragut commented that he could run past the town any time he wanted, but without help from the fleet that was coming down the Mississippi from the north (then stuck north of Memphis) and a large army contingent (which Butler and Henry Halleck, the commander to the north, refused to supply), there was little he could do. It's a wonder that Farragut's fleet didn't suffer more losses; the large oceangoing ships just weren't designed to deal with the snags and sandbanks and shallow channels of the Mississippi, and there were several instances of ships grounding. The attempt to take Vicksburg simply distracted the Union forces, meaning that the Confederates were able to build up Mobile until it too was very hard to attack. And, because no one would back the Navy push to Vicksburg, the Confederates were also able to return to the Mississippi and retake the area from Vicksburg to Port Hudson/Baton Rouge.
Despite the failure at Vicksburg, the govenment for the first time created an admiral's rank (to be specific, Rear Admiral), and Farragut was the first man to be promoted to that rank (Anderson, p. 136).
The Brooklyn was present when Farragut finally went after Mobile, and played an indirect part in the most famous incident there. As at New Orleans, the Federals faced a combined defense: both ships and land fortifications. And, as at New Orleans, Farragut had both large and small ships, in separate divisions. There was one new wrinkle, though: the Confederates were getting better at developing mines (what were then called "torpedoes"), and they had mined the harbor entrances. Farragut initially planned to lead the large-ship division in the Hartford, but his officers convinced him that he should position himself and his ship behind the front ship, so that his signals could more easily be seen.
That meant a different ship would have to lead the division, and the Brooklyn was chosen, because she had been fitted with a gadget that would, it was hoped, disable mines or cause them to go off further from the ship.
The Brooklyn duly entered the harbor -- but as she did so, a monitor, Tecumseh, hit a mine and went straight to the bottom (McPherson, p. 210; Stern, p. 205, says it took 25 seconds), taking with her her captain, Tom Craven's brother T. A. M. Craven (HTIECivilWar, p. 191) and 93 of the 114 sailors on board (Stern, p. 205). Tom Craven by then had gone on to other duties, but the explosion caused the Brooklyn to hesitate, fearing more mines. Farragut in the Hartford refused to be daunted. There is dispute about whether he actually said "Damn the torpedoes," but he definitely ordered the fleet forward (McPherson, p. 210), and the Federals would go on to win the battle.
Like this ship, Captain Thomas Tinsey Craven (1808-1887) had a frustrating second half of the war. A midshipman from 1822 (meaning that he was too old to have attended Annapolis), he became a lieutenant in 1830, finally reaching commander in 1852 and being given command of the Brooklyn during the war. In 1863 he was given command of the Iroquois and made commodore of a flotilla seeking Confederate ships in European waters (HTIECivilWar, p. 191). Later he was given the Niagara, which at the time of her construction in 1856 was the largest ship to have been built in the United States (Silverstone, p. 30).
While in the Niagara, Craven, joined by the smaller Sacramento encountered the Confederate ironclad Stonewall at Ferrol, Spain in 1845. The Stonewall was supposed to cross the ocean to prey on American commerce, and Craven could have attacked her, but decided that the combat was too dangerous for his wooden ships.
On paper, I think he was right. The Stonewall had a very big ram on her bow, with a very heavy forward gun and two medium-heavy guns in a turret at her stern. She was slower than the Federal ships, but her heavy iron sides could probably have taken a lot of punishment. I would have expected her to sink any random wooden ship. Except... she was very ill-constructed. She was almost impossible to handle in heavy weather, and she had a permanent leak by her rudder-post (Stern, p. 223). Her captain wrote, "You must not expect too much of me; I fear the power and effect of this vessel have been too much exaggerated"; he would later declare that the Confederacy had been "cheated and deceived" by her builders (Stern, p. 246). So Craven's ships very well might have been able to sink her. But I can't see how Craven could be expected to know that. "The Spaniards thought [the Stonewall was] sure to win [a battle with the Union ships]. Only the Confederates knew how serious her shortcomings were" (Stern, p. 223).
In practice Craven's decision hardly mattered, since the war was almost at an end; the Stonewall did not leave Europe until the end of March 1865, fearing an attack by the Union vessels the whole time (Stern, pp. 246-248). Craven's refusal to engage resulted in a court-martial that convicted him of failing to fight and sentenced him to two years on leave pay, but Navy secretary Gideon Welles overturned the verdict. Not out of sympathy, though; he overturned it because he thought it too lenient and didn't want it on the record (McPherson, p. 223).
Despite that, Craven was made Rear Admiral in 1866 and retired three years later (HTIECivilWar, p. 191).
As one would expect from a song by an eyewitness, this song seems to be mostly accurate. Some of the historical notes:
"It was in December '61... The Brooklyn left the Delaware...." The song is correct in stating that the Brooklyn joined the blockading squadron in 1861 (Silverstone, p. 35).
"Tom Craven was our captain's name." Correct; see above. I don't know the names of the junior officers, so I can't say if "Lowry was our first luff," but I see no reason to doubt it.
"It was in the month of April" that the fleet set out for New Orleans. Correct, though some ships were already in the Mississippi before then. But the bombardment of the forts, the run past them, and the capture of New Orleans all took place in the last weeks of April.
"From bank to bank between two forts there did a chain extend." There were hulks holding up the chain, but essentially correct; the chain was supposed to ships from running the forts, and the forts were supposed to guard the chain. As it turned out, neither worked....
"Fort Philip with 80 guns... Fort Jackson with 100 more." The name of the first fort was "Fort ST. Philip," and the number of guns is almost 50% too high, but that's not too bad an error in the circumstances.
"Battering rams and fire rafts." The Manassas was a ram, although not a battering ram, and the Confederates did use fire rafts, so this is essentially correct.
"Bold Duncan in Fort Jacks brave Farragut defied." The commander of the forts was Johnson Kelly Duncan.
"On the 24th of April, before the break of day... The Union fleet got underway." Correct as to both the date of the attempt to run the forts and the early hour.
"The Hartford being flagship." Correct; Farragut flew his flag in the Hartford.
"The Hartford has got up in range... The Pensacola on the right, The Richmond comes up too." The Hartford, Brooklyn, and Richmond were Farragut's second division; though the Pensacola was the #2 ship in the first division, according to the map on p. 59 of McPherson. Possibly the mention of the Pensacola here is by confusion with the attack on Chalmette described below.
"The Hartford's now all in a blaze... The Brooklyn drops and covers her -- the fire is put out." A fire raft did indeed hit the flagship and briefly set her ablaze, though the first was not as severe as this account might make it sound.
"The chain being cut the night before." Correct; two spans of the chain across the Mississippi had been cleared by two of the small boats at the front of Farragut's fleet (McPherson, pp. 58-59).
"The battering ram comes down to us... The Brooklyn... The Mississippi now comes up to have a little fun... She butts the ram between the eyes and jammed her on the beach." A little oversimplified but basically correct. The ram Manassas attacked two of Farragut's ships. One was the Mississippi, which survived because a young George Dewey, the future commander of the Battle of Manila Bay, was able to turn the ship so that she suffered only a glancing blow. The other ship was the Brooklyn, but she too survived, perhaps because of the anchor chains hung over her sides blunted the collision (Fowler, p. 121). Farragut wrote to his wife that "After we had passed the forts, I saw the ram coming up. I hailed Melancton Smith [commander of the Mississippi, a side-wheeler] and told him to run her down. Smith turned his hip, head[ed] down stream, and they ran at each other.... When within fifty yards, the enemy's heart failed him, and he turned to right and ran on shore. Smith poured in a broadside, which riddled her. She floated down stream, on fire from her own furnaces [and sank]" (McPherson, p. 64). In an interesting side note, Alexander Warley, commander of the Manassas, had previously served on the Mississippi, so he was sunk by his own former ship! (Fowler, pp 120-121).
"Full twenty gunboats they did have... we sunk them every one." The number is disputed and uncertain, and twenty is a high total, but there were a lot of small Confederate boats, and while some of them survived, most were knocked out.
"The Chalmette batteries." Chalmette is just downstream from New Orleans itself -- the last defense of the city, more or less. The defenses there had fourteen guns; the Hartford, Brooklyn, Pensacola, Oneida, and Cuyuga silenced them (McPherson, p, 65).
"Here's to brave McClellan, he'll break Secession's coil." Simply not true, but clear evidence that the song was written in 1862, and probably early 1862: At the time the navy took New Orleans, George B. McClellan was still moving forward with his Peninsular Campaign, which Robert E. Lee would put to an end at the Seven Days' Battlesstarting on June 25. McClellan was permanently gone before the end of 1862. A confident statement that McClellan would succeed would almost certainly have to have been written before the end of June. This is suitable on other grounds, since the song doesn't mention anything the Brooklyn did after the New Orleans campaign -- not even the Vickburg campaign which so soon followed. - RBW
Bibliography Last updated in version 7.1
File: CAFS1344

Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Song List

Go to the Ballad Index Instructions
Go to the Ballad Index Bibliography or Discography

The Ballad Index Copyright 2025 by Robert B. Waltz and David G. Engle.