Quarantine. They surrendered and I paroled them not to take up arms again. I could not stop to take care of them. If the General will come up to the bayou and land a few men or as many as he pleases, he will find two of our gunboats there to protect him from the gunboats that are at the forts. I wish to get to the English Turn, where they say they have not placed a battery yet, but have two above, nearer New Orleans."

The forts followed the fate of the city. A demand was made by Captain Porter for their surrender, immediately after the passage up of Commodore Farragut's squadron; but, the commanding officer, Colonel Higgins, refused to give up, particularly as he regarded himself able to hold the position for a time longer against Porter's bombs. Porter preferred to await the coming up of Butler's forces from the land side, to invest and carry the works by storm. Aware of this approach of the land forces, the cominanding officer in the main fortress, together with General J. R. Duncan, commanding the coast defenses, and W. B. Renshaw, commanding the rebel "navy," accepted the terms of capitulation extended by Captain Porter.

The forts, after capitulation, were turned over to General Phelps. Porter said of their condition: "Fort Jackson is a perfect ruin. I am told that over one thousand eight hundred shells fell in and burst over the centre of the fort. The practice was beautiful. The next fort we go at we will settle sooner, as this has been hard to get at. The naval officers sunk one gunboat while the capitulation was going on, but I have one of the others, a steamer, at work, and hope soon to have the other."

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XX VIII.

INCIDENTS OF THE CAPTURE OF FORTS JACKSON AND ST. PHILIP, AND THE FALL OF NEW ORLEANS.

BEFORE Our bombardment of the forts began, the commanders of the British and French men-of-war lying in the river expressed a desire to visit the enemy, of course to examine his preparations. The Commodore readily granted their request. When they returned, they assured him that it was of no use for him to attempt the capture of New Orleans in that direc tion; it could not be done with wooden vessels. The brave old tar replied: "I was sent here to make the attempt. You may be right, but I came here to take New Orleans-to pass the forts-and I shall try it on!"

Of the fire-rafts sent down on the 18th and 19th, to destroy our fleet, a reporter present at the scene, wrote: "Our men had an opportunity to test, in a practical manner, their means for destroying fire-rafts, and they proved to be an admirable success. A turgid column of black smoke, arising from resinous wood, was seen approaching us from the vicinity of the forts. Signal lights were made, the varied colors of which produced a beautiful effect upon the foliage of the river bank, and rendered the darkness intenser by contrast when they disappeared. Instantly a hundred boats shot out towards the raft, which now was blazing fiercely, and casting a wide zone of light upon the water. Two or three of the gunboats then got under way and steamed boldly toward the unknown thing of terror. One of them, the Westfield, Captain Renshaw, gallantly opens her steam valves, and dashes furiously upon it, making the sparks fly and timbers crash with the force of her

blow. Then a stream of water from her hose plays upon the blazing mass. Now the small boats lay alongside, coming up helter-skelter, and actively employing their men. We see everything distinctly in the broad glare-men, oars, boats, buckets, and ropes. The scene looks phantom-like, supernatural; intensely interesting, extremely exciting, inextricably confused. But, finally, the object is nobly accomplished. The raft, yet fiercely burning, is taken out of range of the anchored vessels and towed ashore, where it is slowly consumed. As the boats return they are cheered by the fleet, and the scene changes to one of darkness and repose, broken occasionally by the gruff hail of a seaman when a boat, sent on business from one vessel to another, passes through the fleet. We have a contempt for fire-rafts. They have proved, like many other things, to be 'weak inventions of the enemy.'

Fort Jackson, as stated by Captain Porter, was greatly shattered by the appalling fire of the flotilla and fleet. The drawbridges were completely destroyed; the cisterns were demolished; the casemates and passages were filled with water, the levee having been cut away. The platforms for tents were destroyed by the fire of shells. All the casemates are cracked from end to end, and in some places the roofs are completely broken, and frequently masses of brick have been dislodged. Four guns were dismounted, and eleven carriages and traverses injured. The outer works of the fort are cracked from top to bottom, in several places admitting daylight freely. It is computed that 3,339 shells were thrown into the ditches and overflowed parts of the fort; 1,080 shells exploded in the air over the fort; 1,113 mortar-shells were counted on the sloping ground of the fort and levee, and eighty-seven round shot. Altogether 7,500 shells were fired. One shell passed through the roof of the water battery magazine, but did not explode. On the parapet were fourteen new graves.

Porter, when told, at the conference on board the Harriet Lane, that the rebel "gentlemen of the navy" had fired and let loose the iron battery, signalled to his captains to look out for their ships, and then quietly went on with the conference,

telling the rebel colonel who was on board with him, that "we could stand the fire and blow-up, if he could." That speech has the true ring of the old "Essex" Porter, who fought one of the most desperate battles known to history, and whose spirit is evidently alive in this descendant of his.

During the conflict the much heard of ram Manassas—with which Commodore Hollins achieved his sole exploit by run ning into the Brooklyn when she ventured into the river in the fall of 1861-again made its appearance, but only to its own dire destruction. It was so well "peppered" that it came drifting helplessly down stream on fire and in a sinking condi tion. Whether her crew remained on board, to be roasted or parboiled according to their place in the ship, or whether they escaped, is not known. Commodore Porter, who had an eye for a joke, did his best to preserve that specimen joke of the rebels; he clapped a hawser round it and tried to tow it to the bank, but the ridiculous affair gave a puff, blew a few harmless flakes of flame into the eyes of the laughing tars who were endeavoring to surround it, and sunk.

Among other things destroyed by the rebels at New Or leans, was their monster and really formidable floating bat tery-the Mississippi-upon which the Southern people had founded high hopes of success to their cause. She had been seven months in course of construction, employing five hun dred men the whole time, and would have been finished in three weeks. Her length was two hundred and seventy feet, her depth sixty, and her armament was to have been twenty rifled guns. The frame of the hull was made of Georgia pine, nine inches thick. Over the wood were placed three plates of rolled iron, making the thickness of the armor alone four inches and a half. She was 5,000 tons burden, and her mo tive power consisted of three propellers, which were calculated to give her a speed of eleven knots an hour. Two millions of dollars are said to have been expended in building her. Some of the prisoners, taken in the gunboats, stated that she was intended to break up the blockade and then cruise in the Gulf and near Havana for prizes.

A pleasing incident occurred when the Federal frigate Mis sissippi struck the levee shore at "Algiers" in her effort to swing around. A large and boisterous crowd collected, and sought to provoke the officers and men by their remarks. The Captain, to drown their noise, called the band and bade them strike up Hail Columbia. Involuntarily, as it were, the rabble ceased howling, and instinctively some of the old men in the throng raised their hats in acknowledgment of the strains which from their youth had inspired them.

Two Irishmen came alongside Captain Woodworth's vessel on her way up stream, with milk and eggs to sell. The Captain, to enjoy a joke, offered to pay them for what was purchased in Confederate scrip. "Be gorra!" said Pat, "I thought yez was gintlemen, and paid for what yez wanted. Divil a bit of money have I seen for a year, and Confederate scrip nas brought the wife and children to starvation almost." Ho was paid in the coin of Uncle Sam, when he broke out: "Hur rah for the ould flag! They wanted to make me fight against it, but I never have fought and I never will fit for 'em." And he turned the money in his hand, examining it curiously, as a child might a newly-acquired toy.

A correspondent wrote of the appearance of the city: "I was impressed with the remarkably desolate appearance of the city. All the warehouses were shut, and there was not a ves‐ sel, save those of the squadron, to be seen anywhere. As soon as the fleet, in its victorious advance, swept away the defenses at La Chalinette, a few miles below, and appeared before the city, the deluded people burned all the shipping, and quantities of sugar, tobacco and cotton. The work of destruction was complete. More than forty vessels-steamers, schooners, ships-and immense piles of cotton, were fired at the same time, and the levee was a line of flame. The scene is described as being terrible. The mob took advantage of the occasion to plunder, and a panic of the wildest description raged. I saw the effects of this wanton sacrifice of property in the half-burned and submerged hulls of several vessels, and