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Military Operations In Louisiana

The Tiger Rifles of Wheat's 1st Special Battalion, composed of the roughest element of New Orleans, were feared by both sides for its ferocious behavior.

New Orleans, Louisiana, was the largest city in the Southern United States during the American Civil War. Its location near the mouth of the Mississippi River made the city an important and early target of the Union Army, which occupied the city for much of the war. Louisiana voted to secede from the Union on January 26, 1861. On January 29, the Secession Convention reconvened in New Orleans (it had earlier met in Baton Rouge) and passed an ordinance that allowed Federal employees to remain in their posts, but as employees of the state of Louisiana. In March, Louisiana accepted the constitution of the Confederate States of America.

Captain David G. Farragut was selected by the Union government for the command of the West Gulf Blockading Squadron in January 1862. The four heavy ships of his squadron (none of them armored) were, with many difficulties, brought up to the Gulf Coast and the lower Mississippi, and around them assembled nineteen smaller vessels (mostly gunboats) and a flotilla of twenty mortar boats under Commander David Dixon Porter. The main defenses of the Mississippi River consisted of two permanent forts, Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip, as well as numerous smaller auxiliary fortifications. The two forts were of masonry and brick construction, armed with heavy rifled guns as well as smoothbores, and located on either riverbank so as to command long stretches of the river and the surrounding flats. In addition, the Confederates had some improvised ironclads and gunboats, large and small, but these were outnumbered and outgunned by the gathering Federal fleet.

On April 16, after elaborate reconnaissances, the Union fleet steamed up into position below the forts, and on April 18 the mortar-boats opened fire. Their shells fell with great accuracy, and although one of the boats was sunk by counter-fire and two disabled, Fort Jackson was seriously damaged. But the defenses were by no means crippled, even after a second bombardment on the 19th. A formidable obstacle to the advance of the Union main fleet was a boom between the forts, designed to detain the ships under close fire should they attempt to run past. Gunboats were repeatedly sent up at night to endeavor to destroy the boom, but without much success. The Federal Navy bombardment of the forts continued, disabling only a few Confederate guns but keeping the gunners of Fort Jackson under cover and limiting their ability to respond.

At last, on the night of April 23, the gunboats Pinola and Itasca ran in and broke a gap in the boom. At 2:00 a.m. on April 24, the fleet weighed anchor, Farragut in the corvette Hartford leading. After a severe conflict at close quarters, with the forts and with the ironclads and fire rafts of the defence, almost all the Union fleet (except the mortar-boats) forced its way past. The fleet soon steamed upriver past the Chalmette batteries, the final significant Confederate defensive works protecting New Orleans. At noon on April 25, Farragut finally anchored in front of the prized city. Forts Jackson and St. Philip, isolated and continuously bombarded by the mortar-boats, surrendered on April 28. Soon afterwards, the infantry portion of the combined arms expedition marched into New Orleans and occupied the city without any further resistance.

On the 1st of May Major General Benjamin Butler, took possession of New Orleans, and immediately afterward of all its outlying defenses. General Butler at once declared martial law (by a proclamation dated May 1st), abridging the liberty of the press and placing the telegraph under military espionage. Many of his acts gave great offense, such as the seizure of $800,000 that had been deposited in the office of the Dutch consul. Butler was nicknamed "The Beast," or "Spoons Butler" (the latter arising from silverware looted from local homes by some Union troops, though there was no evidence that Butler himself was personally involved in such thievery). Butler ordered the inscription "The Union Must and Shall Be Preserved" to be carved into the base of the celebrated equestrian statue of General Andrew Jackson, the hero of the Battle of New Orleans, in Jackson Square.

On the 6th a military commission was established to try capital and other serious offenses. His instructions from General McClellan, as General-in-Chief, dated February 23rd, the main object of which had now been so successfully accomplished, looked to the occupation of Baton Rouge as the next step, "and the opening of communication with the northern column, bearing in mind the occupation of Jackson, Mississippi." Mobile was to follow. The whole force assigned to General Butler, for all purposes, was 18,000, but his actual force can at no time have exceeded 15,000; it was now probably about 13,000.

General Butler raised, on his own motion, two good regiments of infantry, the 1st Louisiana, Colonel Richard E. Holcomb, and 2nd Louisiana, Colonel Charles J. Paine, well commanded and well office red; three excellent troops of Louisiana cavalry under fine leaders, Captains H. F. Williamson, Richard Barrett, and J. F. Godfrey; and three colored regiments with white field and staff officers, designated as the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd "Louisiana Native Guards" (a name "captured" by General Butler), Colonels Spencer H. Stafford, Nathan W. Daniels, and John A. Nelson. I believe these were the first negro troops mustered into the service of the United States.

On the 15th an order (No. 28) prescribing that women guilty of insulting Union soldiers should be treated as "women of the town"; and on the 16th an order forbidding the city and the banks from receiving Confederate money, and fixing the 27th of May as a date when all circulation of Confederate notes and bills should cease in the Department of the Gulf.

William B. Mumford, a pro-Confederacy man who hauled down the flag which by Farragut's order had been raised over the Mint, was convicted of treason, and by General Butler's order was hanged on the 7th of June from a gallows placed under the flag-staff of the Mint. Mumford, who was a North Carolinian, though long a resident of New Orleans, addressed a vast crowd from the gallows. He spoke with perfect self-possession, and said that his offense had been committed under excitement.

Promptly on the 2nd of May Farragut moved the fleet up the river. On the 8th General Butler sent Brigadier-General Thomas Williams, with 1400 men of the 4th Wisconsin and 6th Michigan regiments, and two sections of Everett's 6th Massachusetts battery, to the north. On the 12th the troops landed at Baton Rouge and took possession of the town. The advance of the fleet anchored below Vicksburg on the 18th, when Commander Lee and General Williams jointly demanded from "the authorities" the surrender of the town which was refused.

The whole available force of the department, as things were then, could not have held Vicksburg. Farragut's guns were heavily handicapped by the extreme elevation required to reach the batteries on the bluff, 200 feet above the river, while Williams could not land till the batteries were silenced. After a thorough reconnoissance on the 25th it was decided to drop down the river, leaving six vessels to keep up a blockade and an occasional bombardment.

On the way down the river a Confederate battery at Grand Gulf fired about sixty shots at short range at the transports, killing one private and wounding one officer (Captain Chauncey J. Bassett) of the 6th Michigan regiment. The gun-boat Kineo under Lieutenant-Commander Ransom, shelled the town, and General Williams sent four companies of the 4th Wisconsin, under Major Frederick A. Boardman, to disperse the Confederate camp. A skirmish in the dark followed, in which Lieutenant George DeKay, Aide-de-Camp to General Williams, was mortally wounded, while in front of the advance-guard. De Kay was a most estimable young man, much loved by all that knew him, and was the first officer killed in the department.

On the 29th of May the troops were back at Baton Rouge, where they landed and went into camp for the first time in three weeks; indeed, the men had been almost continuously on the crowded transports, in a great state of discomfort, since the 17th of April. General Butler sent up reenforcements, and with them orders "to proceed to Vicksburg with the flag-officer, and then take the town or have it burned at all hazards." Accordingly, on the 20th of June, General Williams again set out for Vicksburg, under convoy, this time with four regiments and ten guns: the 4th Wisconsin, 30th Massachusetts, 9th Connecticut, 7th Vermont, Nims's 2nd Massachusetts battery, and two sections of Everett's; leaving the 21st Indiana, 6th Michigan, the remaining section of Everett's battery, and Magee's troop of cavalry to hold Baton Rouge against a possible attack from Camp Moore, near Tangipahoa. At Ellis's Bluffs, and again at Grand Gulf, troops were landed to drive off the field-batteries that had been firing upon the gun-boats. On the 25th the troops were back at Vicksburg where the bulk of the fleet and sixteen of Commodore Porter's mortar-boats, or "bombers," as they were rather familiarly called, were now lying at anchor.

In the summer of 1862, as the ships of the West Gulf Blockading Squadron under Flag Officer David Glasgow Farragut bombarded the Vicksburg river defenses, a 3,000-man infantry brigade commanded by Brig. Gen. Thomas Williams began work on a canal. The purpose of the canal was to create a channel for navigation that would bypass the Confederate batteries at Vicksburg.

After the failure of the attack by Farragut and Porter's fleets on the 28th of June, Farragut sent an urgent appeal for aid to Halleck, at Corinth, saying: "My orders, General, are to clear the river. This I find impossible without your assistance. Can you aid me in this matter to carry out the peremptory order of the President?" Unfortunately, Halleck's army was broken up; he was sending reenforcements to Curtis and Buell, and was being asked to send 25,000 men to McClellan. The Confederates, however, were able to send 10,000 men to the support of the defenders. Finally the Arkansas came out of the Yazoo and put an end to the operations, and the two fleets turned their backs on each other and on Vicksburg, and on the 20th of July the troops landed once more at Baton Rouge.

Overwork, malaria, and scurvy, the result of privation, had done their work on Williams's men; of the 3200 men that went up the river barely 800 came back fit for duty. Van Dorn at once prepared to assume the offensive. As the last of the fleet steamed away from Vicksburg, Breckinridge set out for Camp Moore with five thousand picked men. There he was to pick up the troops under Brigadier-General Daniel Ruggles, raising the whole force to six thousand, and promptly attack Baton Rouge, in cooperation with the Arkansas. The plan was admirably conceived and put in motion with great promptness. As Van Dorn estimated Williams's force at 3500 (it was in fact less), with four or five of the same gun-boats that the Arkansas had already treated so cavalierly, he had a right to look for success.

Breckinridge organized his force in two divisions, the first commanded by Brigadier-General Charles Clark, consisting of the brigades of Brigadier-General B. H. Helm and Colonel T. B. Smith, 20th Tennessee; the second division under Brigadier-General Daniel Ruggles, comprising the brigades of Colonel A. P. Thompson, 3d Kentucky, and Colonel H. W. Allen, 4th Louisiana. To these forces w ere attached three batteries of artillery, two mounted companies and 250 Partisan Rangers.

Shortly after daylight on the 5th of August, a dense fog prevailing, Breckinridge moved to the attack, Ruggles deployed on the left of the road from Greenwell Springs to Baton Rouge, Clark on its right. Williams stood to receive the attack, his troops deployed in a single line, with reserves, covering the rear of the town. No attempt at intrenching had been made, and from the nature of the country, for the most part an elevated plateau surmounting the bluff, the line was open to attack from any direction except the river. From left to right the troops were posted thus: 4th Wisconsin beyond Bayou Grosse; 9th Connecticut next 14th Maine at the crossing of the Bayou Sara and Greenwell Springs roads on the left of the latter; 21st Indiana on its right; 6th Michigan across the Perkins and Clay Cut roads near their fork; 7th Vermont and 30th Massachusetts in reserve supporting the center and right.

Ruggles was soon engaged; Clark took up the attack; and falling on fiercely they at first carried everything before them. Some of the tents that were in advance of the line of battle were occupied, and Brown's two guns were captured by the 4th Louisiana, but immediately retaken by the 6th Michigan, together with the colors of their opponents. Then as the attack spent its vigor and developed its direction, Williams re-formed the 21st Indiana and 6th Michigan, rather roughly handled at first, on the new line. The 9th Connecticut moved by the flank to the support of their left the 30th Massachusetts covered the interval on the left of the 6th Michigan, and the 4th Wisconsin went to the assistance of the 14th Maine, which had been stoutly holding its own against the onset of Clark. Finally the Union troops advanced to the attack, the Confederates in their turn were driven back in some disorder, and at 10 o'clock the battle was over, with the attack thrown off and the battle-field in the hands of the defenders.

The Union loss was 84 killed, 266 wounded, 33 missing, in all 383. Among the killed were Colonel George T. Roberts, 7th Vermont, and the gallant commander, Brigadier-General Thomas Williams, who fell pierced by a rifle-ball in the chest, just after giving the final order to attack. An extremely rigid disciplinarian, a thoroughly trained and most accomplished officer, and a man of the highest courage and honor, General Williams's death was long and deeply regretted in the department.

The Confederate loss was 84 killed, 315 wounded, 57 missing,-total, 456. Brigadier-General Charles Clark, commanding the First Division, was severely wounded and made prisoner, and also among the wounded were three brigade commanders, Colonels Thomas H. Hunt, A. P. Thompson, and H. W. Allen, the last two severely.

The iron-clad Essex Commander William D. Porter, with the Cayuga and Sumter above the town, and the gun-boats Kineo, Lieutenant-Commander George M. Ransom, and Katahdin, Lieutenant F. A. Roe, contributed materially to the defense. The numbers engaged cannot have been far from equal-about 2500 on either side.

When Williams fell, Colonel Thomas W. Cahill, of Connecticut, succeeded to the command. On the 6th he was relieved by Colonel Halbert E. Paine, 4th Wisconsin, who had been sent up from New Orleans by Butler on receiving the first news of the battle. Being still menaced by Breckinridge, the troops took up a new and shorter line, extending from Bayou Grosse by the tannery and penitentiary to the neighborhood of the capitol; at 3 o'clock every morning they stood to arms, and by the 13th Colonel Paine, with characteristic care and energy, had strongly intrenched the arsenal grounds, with 24 guns in position, and with the cooperation of the navy concerted every measure for an effective defense against numbers.

By General Butler's orders the library and a statue of Washington, in the capitol, were packed and shipped to New Orleans. On the 20th, by Butler's orders, Baton Rouge was quietly evacuated, and the troops, with all their material, proceeded to Camp Parapet, at Carrollton, just above New Orleans, where they set to work to extend and strengthen the old Confederate lines and put everything in good condition for defense.

Breckinridge had fallen back to Port Hudson, where, by Van Dorn's orders, the strong works were begun that were long to prove a formidable obstacle to the Union operations on the Mississippi. On the 19th of August Breckinridge was ordered by Bragg to leave the command in the hands of Ruggles and return to Mississippi.

The "Official Records" covering this period afford several strong hints of a Confederate plan for the recapture of New Orleans. Major-General Richard Taylor appears to have had that object committed to his special care when he was assigned (August 20th) to command in western Louisiana, and it seems likely that the troops of Van Dorn's department, as well as those at Mobile, were expected to take part.

Toward the end of September, Lieutenant Godfrey Weitzel, of the Engineers, having been made a brigadier-general on Butler's recommendation, was placed in command of a brigade of 4 regiments of infantry, 2 batteries and 4 troops of cavalry, and General Butler committed to his hands the preparations for dislodging Taylor's force and occupying the district of the La Fourche, important to the security of New Orleans because comprising or controlling all the fertile region between the Mississippi and the Atchafalaya.

With the funds of tho army, four light-draught gun-boats, the Estrella, Calhoun, Kinsman, and Diana, were quickly built, equipped, turned over to the navy, and sent to Berwick Bay, under Commander T. McKean Buchanan. When all was ready Weitzel took transports, under convoy, landed below Donaldsonville, entered the town, and on the 27th of October moved on Thibodeaux, the heart of the district. At Georgia Landing, two miles above Labadieville, he encountered the Confederates under Brigadier-General Alfred Mouton, consisting of tho 18th and 33d Louisiana, Crescent and Terre Bonne regiments, Ralston's and Semmes's batteries, and 2nd Louisiana Cavalry, in all reported by Mouton as 1,392 strong, they had taken up a defensive position on both sides of the bayou.

After a short but spirited engagement, Mouton's force was routed and pursued about four miles. Mouton then called in his other troops, burned the bridges, and evacuated the district, Buchanan's gun-boats having been prevented by a gale from arriving in time to cut off the retreat. Mouton's report accounts for 5 killed, 8 wounded, and 186 missing, in all, 199. Among the killed was Colonel G. P. McPheeters of the Crescent regiment. Weitzel followed through Thibodeaux, and went into camp beyond the town. He claims to have taken 208 prisoners and 1 gun, his loss was 18 killed, 74 wounded, and 5 missing, total, 97. So ended operations in Louisiana for 1862. Taylor continued to occupy the Teche country, and Weitzel the La Fourche, until the spring of 1863.

On the 9th of November, 1862, General N. P. Banks was assigned to the command of the Department of the Gulf to relieve General Butler. The Department of the Gulf was created when Admiral David G. Farragut captured New Orleans. Banks assumed command of the Department of the Gulf, the Army of the Gulf, and the XIX Corps, which were essentially different names for the same force.

Robert Underwood Johnson (Editor), Clarence Clough Buel (Editor) of The Century Magazine. Battles and Leaders of the Civil War: Opening Battles, Struggle Intensifies, The Tide Shifts, Retreat With Honor. Castle Books. December 1985.

The Civil War in Louisiana Winters. Beginning with the first talk of secession in the state and ending with the last tragic days of the war, this book looks in detail at the military operations that occurred in Louisiana - most of them minor skirmishes, but some of them battles and campaigns of major importance. "…a carefully written and beautifully edited book [that] will stand for many years as the authoritative work on the Civil War in Louisiana.

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