As early as the middle of November, 1861, Mr. Lincoln was discussing the feasibility of capturing New Orleans.  Already Ship Island, off the Mississippi coast, with its uncompleted equipment, had been seized as a Gulf station, and could be used as a base.  The naval force was prepared as rapidly as possible, but it was not until February 3 that Captain Farragut, the commander of the expedition, steamed out of Hampton Roads in his flagship, the screw steam sloop Hartford.  On April 18 he began to bombard forts St. Philip and Jackson, which lie on the river banks seventy-five miles below New Orleans, guarding the approach.  Soon, becoming impatient of this tardy process, he resolved upon the bold and original enterprise of running by the forts.  This he achieved in the night of April 24; and on April 27 the stars and stripes floated over the Mint in New Orleans.  Still two days of shilly-shallying on the part of the mayor ensued, delaying a formal surrender, until Farragut, who had no fancy for nonsense, sharply put a stop to it, and New Orleans, in form and substance, passed under Northern control.  On April 28 the two forts, isolated by what had taken place, surrendered.  On May 1 General Butler began in the city that efficient regime which so exasperated the men of the South.  On May 7 Baton Rouge, the state capital, was occupied, without resistance; and Natchez followed in the procession on May 12.

[Illustration:  The Fight Between The Monitor And The Merrimac]

With one Union fleet at the mouth of the Mississippi and another at Island No. 10, and the Union army not far from the riverside in Kentucky and Tennessee, the opening and repossession of the whole stream by the Federals became a thing which ought soon to be achieved.  On June 5 the gunboat fleet from up the river came down to within two miles of Memphis, engaged in a hard fight and won a complete victory, and on the next day Memphis was held by the Union troops.  Farragut also, working in his usual style, forced his way up to Vicksburg, and exchanged shots with the Confederate batteries on the bluffs.  He found, however, that without the cooeperation of a land force he could do nothing, and had to drop back again to New Orleans, arriving there on June 1.  In a few weeks he returned in stronger force, and on June 27 he was bombarding the rebel works.  On June 28, repeating the operation which had been so successful below New Orleans, he ran some of his vessels by the batteries and got above the city.  But there was still no army on the land, and so the vessels which had run by, up stream, had to make the dangerous gauntlet again, down stream, and a second time the fleet descended to New Orleans.