The Capture of New Orleans 1862

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LSU Press, 2001 - History - 312 pages
On April 24, 1862, Federal gunboats made their way past two Confederate forts to ascend the Mississippi, and the Union navy captured the city of New Orleans. How did the South lose its most important city? In this exhaustively researched, authoritative, well-argued study, Chester Hearn examines the decisions, actions, individuals, and events that brought about the capture of New Orleans - and forever weakened the Confederate war machine. Hearn directs his inquiry to the heart of government, both Union and Confederate, and takes a hard look at the selection of military and naval leaders, the use of natural and financial resources, and the performances of all personnel involved. The decisions of Jefferson Davis, Stephen R. Mallory, and three Confederate secretaries of war, he holds, were as much to blame for the fall of New Orleans as David Farragut's warships. Hearn also scrutinizes the role of Major General Mansfield Lovell and evaluates the investigation that ended his career. Hearn's explorations bring us into a flourishing New Orleans and introduce Louisiana leaders Thomas O. Moore and the debilitated old men sent to prepare the state for war: Major General David E. Twiggs and Commodore Lawrence Rousseau. We follow their trifling efforts to defend the lower Mississippi and General Lovell's frustrations in attempting to arm forts and obtain cooperation from the navy, and we come to understand the dismay of such leaders as P.G.T. Beauregard and Braxton Bragg as they witnessed this bungling. Hearn traces the building of the ironclads Manassas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, and investigates the reason for their failure to defend New Orleans.
 

Contents

The Union h Dead
7
Notions of War
18
Mr Lincolns ImpudentBlockade
32
Emergence of the Mosquito Fleet
67
The Night of the Turtle
81
Father Neptune Picks a Captain
96
Mansfield Lovells Debut
107
Farragut Steams South
125
Recipe for Disaster
187
Seventeen Mighty Warships All Ready to Go
197
Running the Gauntlet
209
High Noon at City Hall
237
By Land and By Water
249
Epilogue
258
Appendix
269
Bibliography
276

New Orleans Shudders
137
Out of the Mud
151
Twenty One Bummers All in a Row
173

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Page 32 - inviting all those who may desire, by service in private armed vessels on the high seas, to aid this Government in resisting so wanton and wicked an aggression, to make application for. . . letters of marque and reprisal to be issued under the seal of the Confederate States.

About the author (2001)

Chester G. Hearn is the author of nineteen books, including Ellet's Brigade: The Strangest Outfit of All and Six Years of Hell: Harpers Ferry during the Civil War. He lives in Erie, Pennsylvania.

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