THE SLEEPING LIONESS
Again the smoke of the navy shadowed the Southern skies. Two expeditions
were aiming mortal blows at the lower South.
The Confederacy had concentrated its forces of the upper waters of the
Mississippi on Island Number 10 near New Madrid. The work of putting
this little Gibraltar in a state of perfect defense had been rushed with
all possible haste. New Madrid had been found indefensible and evacuated
on March thirteenth.
On the seventeenth, Commodore Foote's fleet steamed into position and
the first shell from his guns shrieked its message of death across the
island. The gunboats concentrated their fire on the main battery which
was located on low ground, almost submerged by the high water and
separated from the others by a wide slough. Their gun platforms were
covered with water--the men in gray must work their pieces standing
half-leg deep in mud and slush. Five iron-clad gunboats led the attack.
Three of them were lashed together in midstream and one lay under the
shelter of each shore. Their concentrated fire was terrific. For nine
hours they poured a stream of shot and shell on the lone battery with
its beaver gunmen.
At three o'clock Captain Rucker in charge of the battery called for
reënforcements to relieve his exhausted men. Volunteers rushed to his
assistance and his guns roared until darkness brought them respite. It
had been done. A single half-submerged battery exposed to the
concentrated fire of a powerful fleet had held them at bay and compelled
them to withdraw at nightfall. Rucker fired the last shot as twilight
gathered over the yellow waters. His battery had mounted five guns at
sunrise. Three of them were dismantled. Two of them still spoke defiance
from their mud-soaked beds.
On April the sixth, the fleet reënforced succeeded in slipping past the
batteries in a heavy fog. A landing was effected above and below the
island in large force, and its surrender was a military necessity.
Foote and Pope captured MacKall, the commander, two brigadier generals,
six colonels, a stand of ten thousand arms, two thousand soldiers,
seventy pieces of siege artillery, thirty pieces of field artillery,
fifty-six thousand solid shot, six transports and a floating battery of
sixteen guns.
A cry of anguish came from the heart of the Confederate President. The
loss of men was insignificant--the loss of this enormous store of heavy
guns and ammunition with no factory as yet capable of manufacturing them
was irreparable.
But the cup of his misery was not yet full. The greatest fleet the
United States Navy had gathered, was circling the mouth of the
Mississippi with its guns pointing toward New Orleans. Gideon Welles had
selected for command of this important enterprise the man of destiny,
Davis Glasgow Farragut, a Southerner whose loyalty to the Union had
never been questioned.
Eighty-two ships answered Farragut's orders in his West Gulf squadron at
their rendezvous. His ships were wood, but no braver men ever walked the
decks of a floating battery.
In March he managed to crawl across the bar and push his fleet into the
mouth of the Mississippi. The _Colorado_ was too deep and was left
outside. The _Pensacola_ and the _Mississippi_ he succeeded in
dragging through the mud.
His ships inside, the Commander ordered them stripped for the death
grapple.
New Orleans had been from the first considered absolutely impregnable to
attack from the sea. Forts Jackson and St. Phillip, twenty miles below
the city, were each fortifications of the first rank mounting powerful
guns which swept the narrow channel of the river from shore to shore.
The use of steam, however, in naval warfare was as yet an untried
element of force in the attacking fleet against shore batteries. That
steam in wooden vessels could overcome the enormous advantage of the
solidity and power of shore guns had been considered preposterous by
military experts.
Jefferson Davis had utilized every shipbuilder in New Orleans to hastily
construct the beginnings of a Southern navy. Two powerful iron-clad
gunboats, _Louisiana_ and _Mississippi_, were under way but not ready
for service. Eight small vessels had been bought and armed.
To secure the city against the possibility of any fleet passing the
forts at night or through fog, the channel of the river between Forts
Jackson and St. Phillip was securely closed. Eleven dismasted schooners
were moored in line across the river and secured by six heavy chains.
These chains formed an unbroken obstruction from shore to shore.
This raft was placed immediately below the forts.
There was no serious alarm in the city on the appearance of the fleet in
the mouth of the river. For months they had been cruising about the Gulf
of Mexico without apparent decision.
The people laughed at their enemy. There was but one verdict:
"They'll think twice before attempting to repeat the scenes of 1812."
Not only were the two great forts impregnable but the shores were lined
with batteries. What could wooden ships do with such forts and guns? It
was a joke that they should pretend to attack them. Their only possible
danger was from the new iron-clad gunboats in the upper waters of the
river. They were building two of their own kind which would be ready
long before the enemy could break through the defenses from the North.
When Farragut stripped his fleet for action and moved toward the forts
on the sixteenth of April, New Orleans was the gayest city in America.
The spirit of festivity was universal. Balls, theaters, operas were the
order of the day. Gay parties of young people flocked down the river and
swarmed the levees to witness the fun of the foolish attempt of a lot of
old wooden ships to reduce the great forts.
The guns were roaring now their mighty anthem. Ships and forts--forts
and ships. The batteries of Farragut's mortar schooners were hurling
their eleven-inch shells with harmless inaccuracy.
The people laughed again.
For six days the earth trembled beneath the fierce bombardment. The
fleet had thrown twenty-five thousand shells and General Duncan reported
but two guns dismantled, with half a dozen men killed and wounded. The
forts stood grim and terrible, their bristling line of black-lipped guns
unbroken, their defenses as strong as when the first shot was fired.
On the evening of April twenty-third, the fire of the fleet slackened.
Farragut had given up the foolish attempt, of course. He had undertaken
the impossible and at last had accepted the fact.
But the people of New Orleans had not reckoned on the character of the
daring commander of the Federal fleet. He coolly decided that since he
could not silence the guns of the forts he would run past them with his
swift steam craft and take the chances of their batteries sending him to
the bottom.
Once past these forts and the city would be at his mercy.
He must first clear the river of the obstruction placed below the forts.
Farragut ordered two gunboats to steal through the darkness without
lights and clear this raft. The work was swiftly done. The task was
rendered unexpectedly easy by a break caused by a severe storm.
At three o'clock in the morning of the twenty-fourth, the lookout on the
ramparts of the forts saw the black hulls of the fleet, swiftly and
silently steaming up the river straight for the mouths of their guns.
The word was flashed to the little nondescript fleet of the Confederacy
lying in the smooth waters above and they moved instantly to the support
of the forts.
The night was one of calm and glorious beauty. The Southern skies
sparkled with jeweled stars. The waning moon threw its soft, mellow
light on the shining waters, revealing the dark hulls of the fleet with
striking clearness. The daring column was moving straight for Fort
Jackson. They must pass close under the noses of her guns.
They were in for it now.
The dim star-lit world with its fading moon suddenly burst into sheets
of blinding, roaring flame. The mortar batteries moored in range, opened
instantly in response--their eleven-inch shells, glowing with
phosphorescent halo, circled and screamed and fell.
The black hulls belched their broadsides of yellow flame now. From
battlement and casemate of forts rolled the thunder of their batteries,
sending their heavy shots smashing into the wooden hulls.
Through the flaming jaws of hell, the fleet, with lungs throbbing with
every pound of steam, dashed and passed the forts!
Farragut led in the _Hartford_. But his work had only begun. He had
scarcely reckoned on the little Confederate fleet. He found them a
serious proposition.
Suddenly above the flash and roar and the batteries of the forts and
over the broadsides of the ships leaped a wall of fire straight into the
sky.
Slowly but surely the flaming heavens moved down on the attacking fleet
lighting the yellow waters with unearthly glare.
The Confederates had loosed a fleet of fire ships loaded with pitch pine
cargoes. Farragut's lines wavered in the black confusion of rolling
clouds of impenetrable smoke, lighted by the glare of leaping flames.
The daring little fleet of the Confederacy moved down through the
blinding vapors of their own fires and boldly attacked the on-coming
hosts. Friend could scarcely be told from foe.
A game little Confederate tug stuck her nose into a fire-ship, pushed it
squarely against Farragut's _Hartford_ and slipped between his guns in
the smoke and flame unharmed. The Flagship ran aground. Her sailors
bravely stuck to their post and from their pumps threw a deluge of water
on the flames and extinguished them. The engines of the _Hartford_,
working with all their might, pulled her off the shore under her own
steam. The _Louisiana_, the new gunboat of the Confederacy, had been
pressed into service with but two of her guns working--but she was of
little use and became unmanageable.
Captain Kennon, the gallant Confederate commander of the _Governor
Moore_, found that the bow of his ship interfered with the aim of his
gunners.
"Lower your muzzle and blow the bow of your ship away!"
The big gun dipped its black mouth and blew the bow of his own ship to
splinters and through the opening poured shot after shot into the
Federal fleet. Kennon fired his last shot at point-blank range, turned
the broken nose of his ship ashore and blew her up.
For an hour and a half the two desperate foes wrestled with each other
amid flame and smoke and darkness. As the first blush of dawn mantled
the eastern sky the conflict slowly died away.
Three of Farragut's gunboats had been driven back and one sunk, but his
fleet had done the immortal deed. Battered and riddled with shots, they
had passed the forts successfully. As the sun rose on the beautiful
spring morning he lifted his battle flags and steamed up the river.
New Orleans, the commercial capital of the South, the largest export
city of the world, lay on the horizon in silent shimmering beauty, a
priceless treasure, at his mercy.
Speechless crowds of thousands thronged the streets. The small garrison
had been withdrawn and the city left to its fate. The marines stood
statue-like before the City Hall, their bayonets glittering in the
sunlight. Not a breath of wind stirred. In dead, ominous silence the
flag of the South was lowered from its staff and the flag of the Union
raised in its old place.
There was one man among the thousands who saw this flag with a cry of
joy. Judge Roger Barton, Jr., had braved the scorn of his neighbors
through good report and evil report, holding their respect by the sheer
heroism of his undaunted courage. His aged grandfather was in the city
at the moment, having come on a visit from Fairview. Baton Rouge must
fall at once. There was nothing to prevent Farragut's fleet from
steaming up the river now for hundreds of miles. The old Colonel was
furious when informed that he could not return to Fairview. But there
was no help for it.
"Don't worry, Grandfather," the judge pleaded; "you can depend on it,
Senator Barton will save Fairview if it's within human power--"
"But your grandmother is there, sir!" thundered the old man, "helpless
on her back. There's no one to protect her from the damned Yankees--"
The Judge smiled.
"Maybe the Yankees will not be so bad after all, grandfather. Anyhow
there's no help for it. I've got you here with me safe and sound and I'm
going to keep you--"
The fall of New Orleans sent a dagger into the heart of the South. Ft.
Donelson had broken the center. The fall of New Orleans had smashed the
left wing of the far-flung battle line. The power of the Confederacy was
crushed in the rich and powerful State of Louisiana at a single stroke.
The route to Texas was cut. The United States Navy had established a
base from which to send their fleets into the interior by the great
rivers and by the gulf from the Rio Grande to the Keys of Florida.
The sleeping lioness stirred at last. The delusion of Bull Run had
passed. It took six months of disasters to do for the South what Bull
Run did for the North in six days. The South began now to rise in her
might and gird her loins for the fight she had foolishly thought won on
the plains of Manassas.
Senator Barton was in bed so ill from an attack of influenza it was
impossible for him to travel.
Jennie hastily packed her trunk and left on the first train for the
South. She must reach her helpless grandmother before the Federal army
could attack Baton Rouge.
The tenderness with which Socola helped her on board the train had
brought the one ray of sunlight into her heart. She had expected to go
in tears and terror for what the future held in store in the stricken
world at home.
A smile on the lips of a stranger had set her heart to beating with joy.
She was ashamed of herself for being so happy. But it was impossible to
make her heart stop beating and laughing. He had not yet spoken a word
of love but she knew. She knew with a knowledge sweet and perfect
because she had suddenly realized her own secret. She might have gone on
for months in Richmond without knowing that she cared any more for him
than for a dozen other boys who were as attentive. In this hour of
parting it had come in a blinding flash as he bent over her hand to say
good-by. It made no difference when he should speak. Love had come into
her own heart full, wonderful, joyous, maddening in its glory. She could
wait in silence until in the fullness of time he must speak. It was
enough to know that she loved.
"May I write to you occasionally, Miss Jennie?" he asked with a timid,
hesitating look.
She laughed.
"Of course, you must write and tell me everything that happens here."
Socola wondered why she laughed. It was disconcerting. He hadn't faced
the question of loving Jennie. She was just a charming, beautiful child
whose acquaintance he could use for great ends. His depression came from
the tremendous nerve strain of his work. The early movement of
McClellan's army had kept him in that darkened attic on Church Hill
continuously every hour of the past night. He was feeling the strain. He
would throw it off when he got a good night's rest.
It was not until twenty-four hours after Jennie's departure that he
waked with a dull ache in his heart that refused to go. And so while he
dragged himself about his task with a sense of sickening loneliness, a
girl was softly singing in the far South.