The Capture of New Orleans 1862

NINE: New Orleans Shudders

NINE New OrLearu Shudders On January 1,1862, the citizens of New Orleans could not decide how to celebrate the newyear. Many felt grateful in being so far removed from the bloodshed and ravages of war.'Since Hollins chased Pope out ofthe river, there had been no more Union incursions into the lower Mississippi. After Mansfield Lovell came to town, work on the fortifications had resumed with noticeable energy. People still worried, but now they felt more secure behind heavy gun emplacements. Downriver, the forts were being strengthened with reinforcements, and every other day people observed big guns departing on barges for Forts Jackson and St. Philip. In the evening, the city's militia marched through town to the parade ground, and for an hour or two people could hear the pop-pop of musket drill or the occasional deep boom of gun crews exercising. They read stories about General McClellan 's so-called Army of the Potomac, but that was in farawayVirginia, and in the few skirmishes in Missouri and Kentucky, Confederate soldiers had held their ground. Military activity had reached a new threshold, but the commerce upon which the city depended remained paralyzed by the war. A few blockade runners slipped into Berwick Bay or Lake Pontchartrain, but traffic through the passes had slowed to a crawl. Prices for food, clothing, and household commodities continued to climb,although beef, cotton, seafood, salt, sugar, and vegetables remained plentiful. Flour, which came from the Midwest, jumped to $20a barrel, coffee from South America to $1 apound, and a black market flourished in commontoilet articles and medical supplies like quinine and morphine. Men accustomed to working in the •warehouses along the levees or crewing steamboats had nothing to do and out 138 The Capture of New Orleans, 1862 of desperation joined the army. And money, especially coins, disappeared from the streets, hoarded and buried by those who had it. Various forms of paper, including tickets in trade, appeared in place of hard money,and local businesses were confounded by forgeries.1 John Maginnis, editor of the True Delta, offered a solution. Make New Orleans a free city, he said. Put it under the protection of the Confederate government but keep it separate and m all other ways independent from the rebellion. Maginnis' idea probably appealed to some, and if New Orleans had successfully separated itself from both state and country, it would have set an interesting precedent for cities like Mobile and Galveston —even for the entire state of Texas, which often contemplated its own independence.2 But New Orleans, guided by the Confederate government,waited for foreign intervention. If Richmond's King Cotton policy did not bring Great Britain and France into the war, the Trent affair would. Then British ships •would drive away the Union vessels and business would be better than ever. Louisianians still expressed confidence in Jefferson Davis and the Confederate government, so New Orleans would be patient and wait for the Confederacy's foreign policy to work. Besides, the city was safe, at least for a good long while—General Mansfield Lovell, a man ofdemonstrated energy who knew how to get things done, had told them so. But Lovell, without the navy to keep him informed, had more problems than he could count. On January 16 he seized fourteen river steamers, but Commodore Hollins refused to take the vessels, pleading that he had no funds to arm or refit them and no men to crew them. Besides, War Secretary Benjamin did not want the navy involvedwith the army's gunboats. Lovell had asked for the vessels and Benjamin had gotten them for him, sowhy did Lovell now want to turn army property over to the navy? Benjamin admitted the force was intended as "a peculiarone," but he wanted the vessels "subject to the general command"of Lovell, not Hollins. Had Lovell deceived the War Department by demandingvessels he never expected to get? After appropriating $1million from Congress, Benjamin was not about to go back and say it was all a mistake. To complicate matters more, Lovell discovered after the seizure that the government of Louisiana had intended to outfit some of the same vessels at state expense. Now they were in his possession, and to some observers it seemed that neither the army nor the navy wanted them. The press poked around for 1. New Orleans Commercial Bulletin, January 7, 1862; Dufour, Nykt the War VPtu Ltut, 112-14. 2. New Orleans True Delta, January 10...