“ [230] chains), the odds were greatly in favor of the Confederate defenses.”
The defenders of the old city, New Orleans, were confident that the fleet would never pass. On the 16th of April, the mortar-boats were in position along what was, owing to the bend of the river, really the southern bank (one division, on the first day, was across the river), and in the morning they opened, each vessel firing at the rate of one shell every ten minutes. Organized into three divisions, they were anchored close to the shore, the furthest up stream, only 2,850 yards from Fort Jackson, and 3,680 from Fort St. Philip. They were near a stretch of woods and their tall masts — they were mostly schooners — were dressed with branches of trees in order to disguise their position from the Confederate guns. For almost eight days, at varying intervals even at night, the twenty boats of this flotilla rained their hail of death and destruction on the forts. Brave and hardy must have been the men who stood that terrific bombardment! The commanders of the Confederate forts bore witness to the demoralization of both the men and defenses that ensued. Nearly every shell of the many thousand fired lodged inside the works; magazines were threatened, conflagrations started, and destruction was reaped on all sides. Long after the memorable day of the 24th of April when the fleet swept past, Colonel Edward Higgins, the brave defender of Fort Jackson, wrote as follows:
I was obliged to confine the men most rigidly to the casemates, or we should have lost the best part of the garrison. A shell, striking the parapet over one of the magazines, the wall of which was seven feet thick, penetrated five feet and failed to burst. If that shell had exploded, the work would have ended.
Another burst near the magazine door, opening the earth and burying the sentinel and another man five feet in the same grave.
The parapet and interior of the Fort were completely
