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afraid of. Before this she had never moved a foot from Fort St. Philip, having no motive power.
When reproached by Porter for this act of perfidy, the Confederate officers replied that they were army officers surrendering the forts; that they had no control over the naval officers.
As soon as the forts surrendered, I ordered General Phelps to get his ships towed up by Porter's mortar fleet, and take possession of the forts.
This was done, since Porter was no longer afraid to have his mortar boats come up the river, the “lively ram” having been destroyed.
On the 27th, after the garrisons of the forts were captured at my pickets, I went on board the Wissahickon, Captain Smith, which was at quarantine, and joined Farragut at New Orleans, to consult with him as to the next move to be made.
Meantime Farragut had gone up the river, engaged the rebel battery at English Turn, and routed them with a broadside, and also the battery at Chalmette, being the fortified line that Jackson defended against Pakenham when he appeared before the city.
All the rebel troops under Lovell ran away across Lake Pontchartrain, and very many citizens took steamers and went up the river to Alexandria and elsewhere, having burned and destroyed immense quantities of cotton, sugar, rosin, tobacco, and coal.
Lovell and Twigg having run away, Farragut called upon the city government to surrender and to hoist the United States flag in token thereof on the United States public buildings.
This the mayor declined to do, making the excuse that he was not a military officer.
Farragut then sent Captain Bailey and Lieutenant Perkins ashore with a party of marines and hoisted the United States flag over the United States mint, but did not leave it guarded except that he had howitzers in the main-top of the Hartford which bore upon it.
On the day before I got up to New Orleans a party of ruffians, headed by one Mumford, pulled down Farragut's flag, trailed it on the ground through the streets, tore it in pieces and distributed the pieces among the mob for keepsakes, their leader wearing a piece of it in the buttonhole of his coat as a boutonniere.
As we neared the city the next day the morning papers were brought to me on board the Wissahickon containing a description of
A. M. Thayer and Co. 1892.
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