Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America. Vol. 2.
Henry Coppee , LL.D., Ed.

---

[172] instead of obeying him, disbanded as soon as the order was received. Such were the inevitable consequences of the doctrine of secession; when carried to extremes, it reacted against the cause which had at first profited by it.

At last the news of the capitulation of the forts, which extinguished the last hope of the Confederates and rendered Butler's troops available, put an end to this strange state of affairs. On the morning of the 24th, as soon as Porter saw Farragut's fleet above the forts, he summoned the latter to surrender, and on their refusal to do so renewed the bombardment, directing his fire especially against the ship Louisiana, which, as we have stated, had not participated in the battle, and had thus escaped Farragut's guns. During this time all the channels through which the defenders of the forts might have tried to communicate with New Orleans were occupied by light vessels, while Butler, landing his troops near the quarantine, invested them completely. General Duncan was, nevertheless, in hopes of being able to resist a little while longer. If Fort Jackson was in ruins, St. Philip was still in a tolerably good condition. Only four men had been wounded in the second fort and forty-two in the first; among the latter, notwithstanding the eight thousand bombshells which fell within the enclosure of the fort, only nine wounds had proved mortal. This was at the rate of about one thousand projectiles for each man killed. But the defenders of the two forts were exhausted, isolated, exposed to a bombardment which threatened to become murderous in the extreme, and discouraged, in short, by the prospect of an inevitable surrender. The majority of them, being either Europeans or Americans from the North, were strangers in the city they had been called upon to defend, and to the cause in the service of which they had been enlisted almost by force. During the contest they had bravely performed their duty; but from the moment that Farragut had passed the forts, they were unwilling to sacrifice themselves uselessly. Accordingly, on the 27th of April they assembled en masse, proceeded to spike their guns, to throw the ammunition into the water, and they even fired upon the officers who endeavored to bring them back to their duty. A single company, composed of planters, remained faithful to the Confederate flag. The