Hij was opperbevelhebber van de Amer­ikaanse vloot die in de Burgeroorlog van zee uit de stad New Orleans veroverde (28 april 1862). In 1864 behaalde hij een grote overwinning door het forceren van de toegang tot Mobile (5 aug.). Hij werd bevorderd tot vice admiraal (1864) en admiraal (1866) als eerste die deze rangen bekleedde, die kort daarvoor gecreëerd waren.

LITT.:  C,L.Lewis, D. G. Farragut (2 dln., 1941-1943).

Onder: The rendering by William Waud in dramatic portrayal of the Uninion gunboat ‘Iroquois’ taking in direct hit from Fort Jackson.

Farragut 's Victorious Battle for New Orleans

The Battle of New Orleans in 1815, and the defeat of professional British troops by General Andrew Jackson and his motley band, is well known, but there was an even more important battle for the city in 1862.

At the start of the American Civil War, New Orleans was one of the richest and most powerful cities in the country, primarily because of the role of the Port of New Orleans in serving international markets with goods from the Mississippi Valley. When war broke Out New Orleans' importance grew. The Port linked the battlefronts to the east and north with money and supplies from the western Confederacy. Capture of New Orleans by Union forces would weaken Rebel supply lines, cut the Confederacy into two, discourage growing foreign support, and demoralise the South.

Amazingly, New Orleans was poorly guarded. Most troops and supplies had been siphoned to the front. In May, 1861, only a month after the attack on Fort Sumter, the U.S.S. BROOKLYN anchored off Pass á Loutre of the Mississippi River and blockaded ocean traffic to New Orleans for the duration of the war. By summer's end money and essential supplies were drying up in the city. General Mansfleld Lovell replaced an aged General Twiggs as defender of the City. Lovell found shortages of munitions, ships, troops, clothing and medicine, and a carefree citizenry amused by his zeal in trying to strengthen the City's feeble defences.

The City's security depended heavily upon completion of two giant ironclad ships. But construction of the LOUISIANA and the MISSISSIPPI had been delayed by strikes, mechanical failures, and the absence of a local rolling mill capable of producing the 50-foot central drive shaft for the MISSISSIPPI.

The armor-plated MISSISSIPPI was intended for clearing the river of enemy ships, then attacking union ships along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts. Designed for a speed of 14 knots and mounting 20 guns, the MISSISSIPPI would have been the fastest and most powerful warship ever built - if she had been finished. Lovell repeatedly implored Confederate leaders for help in reinforcing Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, 75 miles below the City, but they refused, being adamant that New Orleans was threatened only from upriver.

In November 1862, Commander David Dixon Porter submitted his plan to capture New Orleans to U.S. Navy Secretary Welles. Porter, a veteran of blockade duty off the Southwest Pass of the Mississippi River, knew the problems that would be faced: crossing the bars in the mouths of the river, passing two heavily armed forts, fighting a daring Confederate flotilla (and possibly the mammoth ironclads under construction in New Orleans), and finally, passing the land batteries at Chalmette, the scene of Andrew Jackson's triumph.

A mortar flotilla under Porter 's command would be at the core of the expedition, but these vessels and larger frigates would be under the command of a flagship officer. Welles and President Lincoln approved the plan. General McClellan agreed to send army troops, led by Benjamin Butler, to occupy the City after its fall, to quell revolution, and to quash further aid to the rest of the South.

Het nieuws over de slag veroorzaakte paniek in New Orleans.

Despite suspicion over his southern ties, David Glascow Farragut, the thirty-seventh candidate, was selected as fleet commander of the Western Gulf Blockading Squadron. His final orders from the U.S. Secretary of the Navy were "This most important operation of war is confined to yourself and your brave associates. if successful, you open the way to the sea for the great West, never again to be closed. The rebellion will be riven in the center and the flag to which you have been 50 faithful will recover its supremacy in every state."

The fleet of 18 large, heavily­ armed vessels, 20 mortar-schooners, and 6 gunboats left for the Gulf in early February. Porter's vessels entered the Mississippi through Pass á Loutre with little difficulty. Farragut's larger vessels endured a grueling, inch-by-inch passage through Southwest Pass with its large bar and then shallow water. Ships were lightened and their supplies distributed among the small boats.

The PENSACOLA grounded in her first four attempts and was finally dragged through the foot of mud, trapping her by steamers from the mortar flotilla. The COLORADO was left behind and her guns distributed to others, when two weeks of exhausting and dangerous tries failed to gain her passage. The remaining ships steamed upriver in April.

Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip were the major obstacles between Farragut and New Orleans. These poorly equipped forts had only 109 guns of low caliber between them. Downstream the forts' defences were supplemented by a cypress log and chain barrier which extended across the river. Earlier this barricade had been broken by masses of trees rushing down with an unusually heavy spring thaw. The damage was repaired and the barrier strengthened by the addition of hulks of schooners with their masts unstepped and their rigging allowed to drift astern to foul the screws of vessels attempting passage, and to hold them under fire of the forts.

Porter's fleet began a massive mortar attack on the forts on April 18, expecting capitulation by the second day. Pounding of the forts, however, continued incessantly for five days. Despite the barrage, which Confederate General J.K. Duncan described as "accurate and terrible," there were few deaths.

Seeing that little progress was being made, Farragut sent two vessels stripped of their rigging and under cover of darkness to investigate the barrier. Without masts the Union ships were difficult to distinguish from the hulks, and they suffered few hits from the heavy fire of the forts. The Union ships struggled against the powerful current, and her men tried in vain to blow up the barricade, but the fuses failed. Captain CaIdwell, on discovering that the chains connecting the hulks could be slipped, had one released. Then with the impetus of the current, at top speed he rammed the chain between the third and fourth hulks. The chains snapped, his vessel went through, and the channel was free.

 (augustus 1864)

D.C.Farragut geheel links na zijn overwinning in de Baai van Mobile

By morning the current had severely disarranged the barricade. Confederate General M.L. Smith explained the significance of this feat, "The forts, in my judgment, were impregnable 50 long as they were in free and open communication with the city. This communication was not endangered while the obstruction existed While the obstruction existed the city was safe; when it was swept away, as the defences then existed, it was in the enemy's power."

On Thursday, April 24, at 2 a.m., Farragut's ships began moving in single file toward the growing gap. Porter continued heavy mortar fire at the forts as the Union fleet passed. At 3:30 the CAYUGA slipped through the cut in the barrier. Smoke from Porter's guns masked the Union ships passage. By 3:40 eight ships had passed through

the break, when a lookout at Fort Jackson spotted the "black, shapeless masses . . . moving silently up the river" and the battle began.

The night was lurid with the furious gunfire from the forts and vessels. A Union officer recalled, "Combine all that you have heard of thunder, add to it all that you have seen of lighting, and you have, perhaps, a conception of the scene. Amid the dense clouds of gunsmoke two Union vessels collided. As the battle raged Farragut's ship ran aground for a brief time near Fort St. Philip, was struck 35 times and set afire by a burning raft; but the fire was doused quickly and the ship freed from the shoal. Farragut later said, "I seemed to be breathing flame." Another officer on Farragut's ship remembered, "We were struck on all sides . . .

Death and destruc-tion seemed every-where. Men's faces were covered with powder - blacked and daubed with blood. They had become like a lot of demons in a wild inferno, working fiercely at the business of death."

The Confederate River Defence Fleet of single gun paddle wheelers fought ingloriously under the dubious leadership of independent­ minded rivermen. Their boats were hit, sunk or run ashore and set afire by their captains. The Union ships now faced only three Southern ships, the MANASSAS, the McRAE and the GOVERNOR MOORE. The MANASSAS, quickly disabled by a fierce cross fire from the Union ships and forts, was scuttled. The McRAE drifted Out of firing range after its tiller ropes were shot away. The GOVERNOR MOORE waged a fierce running battle with the Union vessel VARUNA, rammed the Union ship at full speed and sank her. Lieutenant Beverly Kennon, commander of the GOVERNOR MOORE, turned his vessel to face the whole federal fleet, 'realised the futility of such action and set his ship afire before surrendering. By dawn all federal ships, except the sunken VARUNA and three small gunboats, had passed the forts. Although the forts were not secure, Farragut continued upstream, leaving Porter to renew his mortar attack on the forts and to demand their surrender.

drawing by William Maud

Union mortar crew is illustrated here in an original The ironclad LOUISIANA had been towed to the forts to be used as a floating battery, while mechanics continued repairs. Porter was unaware of her immobile and pathetic condition and later stated that he had had "to contend with the powerful ironclad LOUISIANA

……Had her commander (Mitchell) possessed the soul of a fleat, he could have driven us all out of the river."

When New Orleanians heard of Farragut's victory, rage and panic erupted. General LoveIl ordered a destruction of all goods that could aid the enemy. The levees smoldered with burning cotton, ships and valuable cargoes. Lovell's troops retreated; the City was defenceless. The Union ships docked in New Orleans on April 25, and Farragut immediately demanded the City's surrender. Mayor John T. Monroe refused to surrender the City until April 29, when he learned that the forts had finally surrendered to Porter. Farragut was then free to turn the City over to General Benjamin Butler's 15,000 occupation troops. Farragut then proceeded upriver to capture Baton Rouge and Natchez.

Farragut continued to achieve brilliant victories throughout the war, but it was the capture of New Orleans 50 early in the war that devastated the South. Not only were the Confederate states east of the Mississippi cut off from their Western supplies, but the North could now attack the South from another front, the Mississippi. European support quickly crumbled when it was known that the grandest city of the Confederacy had collapsed with 50 little effort. David Farragut's speedy and decisive victory had felled the Giant, New Orleans

Farragut’s fleet at the hight of the battle confronts the Confederate force at Fort Jackson and Fort St. Phillip below New Orleans. This sketch was made by William Waud, special artist, from the foretop of the war ship ‘Mississippi.

 Onder: deel van een schilderij over de slag in Mobile baai.

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