On the 28th, Benjamin F. Butler, major-general, was taking mock possession of the forts which had already surrendered to Porter's mortar flotilla.
General Lovell was in the city at the time of the arrival of the fleet abreast the wharves. Subsequent to its appearance he had ordered the troops in the town, together with the stores, to be sent off rapidly toward Jackson, Miss. Being unwilling to subject to bombardment a city filled with the wives and children of absent soldiers, he proposed, after turning the city over to the mayor, to evacuate. With his command his objective point was Jackson, where he hoped to prevent the enemy from get. ting in the rear of Beauregard at Corinth, via Vicksburg & Jackson railroad.1 At 5 p. m. General Lovell left the city in the last train of cars that moved under Confederate auspices. At Camp Moore, on the Jackson railroad, he formed a rendezvous of observation and in. struction. Its value was seen when in August General Breckinridge marched from the camp with his division for Baton Rouge, fully fitted to meet a superior force with courage and success.
As a man, Mansfield Lovell was both clever and brilliant.