The river was sealed from Vicksburg to the Gulf of Mexico.  At the former place extensive batteries had been erected and were defended by an army, while the river below bristled with batteries and guns in charge of brave men and skilful officers.

While General Grant undertook the task of reducing Vicksburg, Captain Farragut assumed the herculean work of forcing his way up the Mississippi and capturing New Orleans, the greatest commercial city in the South.  Knowing that such an attack was certain to be made, the Confederates had neglected no precaution in the way of defence.  Ninety miles below the city, and twenty miles above its mouth, at the Plaquemine Bend, were the forts of St. Philip and Jackson.  The former, on the left bank, had forty-two heavy guns, including two mortars and a battery of four seacoast mortars, placed below the water battery.  Fort Jackson, besides its water battery, mounted sixty-two guns, while above the forts were fourteen vessels, including the ironclad ram Manassas, and a partially completed floating battery, armored with railroad iron and called the Louisiana.  New Orleans was defended by three thousand volunteers, most of the troops formerly there having been sent to the Confederate army in Tennessee.

The expedition against New Orleans was prepared with great care, and so many months were occupied that the enemy had all the notice they could ask in which to complete their preparations for its defence.  The Union expedition consisted of six sloops of war, sixteen gunboats, twenty mortar schooners and five other vessels.  The Mississippi, upon which young Dewey was serving as a lieutenant, was under the command of Melanethon Smith.  The land troops numbered 15,000, and were in charge of General Benjamin F. Butler, of Massachusetts.

Farragut arrived in February, 1862, nearly two months after the beginning of preparations to force the river.  When everything was in readiness the fleet moved cautiously up stream, on April 18, and a bombardment of Forts St. Philip and Jackson was opened, which lasted for three days, without accomplishing anything decisive.  Farragut had carefully studied the situation, and, confident that the passage could be made, determined it should be done, no matter at what cost.  On the night of the 23d his vessels were stripped of every rope and spar that could be spared, the masts and rigging of the gunboats and mortar vessels being trimmed with the limbs of trees, to conceal their identity from the Confederate watchers.

At two o’clock in the morning the signal was hoisted on the Hartford, Captain Farragut’s flagship, and the fleet started in single line to run the fearful gauntlet.  The Cayuga led, the Pensacola followed, and the Mississippi was third.  The rebels had huge bonfires burning on both shores, and as the Pensacola came opposite the forts they opened their furious fire upon her.