Supporting this force as auxiliary to it, for the bombardment of Forts Jackson and St. Philip, was Porter’s mortar fleet of twenty schooners, each mounting a thirteen-inch mortar, and a flotilla of five side-wheel steamers, and the gunboat Owasco, carrying, in all, thirty guns.

[Illustration:  Map of the Mississippi River Showing Forts Jackson and St. Philip

From the U.S.  Coast Survey.  Surveyed in 1870 by John N. McClintock.]

The forts in question, forming the principal defences of New Orleans, were heavy casemated works with traverses on top for barbette guns, some ninety miles below the city at a point where the river makes a sharp bend to the southeast.  Fort St. Philip, on the left bank, mounted forty-two guns, and Fort Jackson, including its water battery, had sixty-seven guns in position, all of calibre from the long twenty-four pounder to the heavy ten-inch Columbiad, and including several six-inch and seven-inch rifles.

Stretching across the river from bank to bank to bar the channel, nearly opposite Fort Jackson and exposed to the perpendicular fire of St. Philip, were heavy ship’s chains, supported and buoyed by hulks, rafts, and logs, and half a dozen large schooners.  The rebels had also established some works on the banks of the river about four miles from town, known as the McGehee and Chalmette batteries, the latter being located at the point ever memorable in American history as the scene of General Jackson’s overwhelming defeat of the British in 1815.

Their reliance afloat was in the Louisiana, an ironclad, carrying nine rifles and seven smooth bores of heavy calibre; the ram Manassas, one gun; the McRae, seven guns; the Moore and Quitman with two guns each; six river steamers with their stems shod with iron to act as rams, and several iron-protected tugs.

Assembling the fleet at the head of the passes, after much difficulty in getting the heavy ships over the bar, Farragut ordered the ships to strip like athletes for battle.  Down came mast and spar till nothing was left standing but lower masts,—­and even those were taken out of some of the gunboats,—­and soon everything best out of reach of shot was landed, leaving clear decks, and no top hamper to be cut away by the enemy’s projectiles, and come tumbling down about the heads of guns’ crews.

About this time the English and French men-of-war that had lain before New Orleans, giving aid and comfort to the enemy and making merry in singing rebel songs on board, especially on board the English vessels, left the river, their officers declaring it an impossibility for the fleet to pass the forts and obstructions.

In this connection, it may be mentioned that the cruisers of John Bull prowled along the coast during the entire war, with sometimes permission to enter the blockaded ports, conveying information and lending encouragement to the enemy, and rejoicing at every disaster that befell the Union arms, which, together with the tacit connivance of the British government in letting out the Alabama, and other hostile acts, ought to be treasured against Great Britain so long as the Republic endures.