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FOURTEEN Running the Gauntlet Shortly after midnight on April 24, activity began to stir aboard theUnion fleet. The mates made their rounds with carefully hooded lanterns. Men wiped sleep from their eyes, stowed their hammocks, dressed quickly,and went topside for a ration of hardtack and coffee. The night-was clearbut dark and moonless, with a sharp chill coming off the river. The men ate quickly and then went to work, each to his ownstation. Gun crews stripped to the waist, leaving nothing but monkey jacketstied looselyaround their necks. They shivered as they cast loose the guns, checked the lock strings and sanded the decks. Then they stacked buckets filled with sand behind the guns to be spread on the decks when blood made them slippery. Others prepared tubs ofwater to put out fires, and carpenters cut plugs to patch holes if enemyshells penetrated the chain-armored hull.' At five minutesbefore 2 A.M., Farragut ordered two red lanterns hoisted to the mizzen peak of Hartford. Slowly the vessels moved intoformation, with Cayiuja, under Captain Bailey, taking her position at the head of the squadron. For nearly an hour Bailey waited for Peiuacola, which could not haul up her anchor, to fall in behind. Signal Officer Osbon, who had been tolling off the vessels to Farragut as they filed into position, reported that Peruacola. had not come into line. "Damn that fellow!" Farragut blurted, referring to Captain Morris. "I don't believe he wants to start." But other vessels had similar problems, and the fleet was not ready to move until nearly 3:30 A.M.2 1. Farragut, Life of Farragut, 229; Bartholomew Diggins, "Recollections of the Cruise of the U.S.S. Hartford, Admiral Farragut's Flagship in Operations on the Mississippi River," Manuscript Division, New York Public Library, 78. 2. Paine, Sailor of Fortune, 191; ORN, XVIII, 156, Farragut to Welles, May 6, 1862. 210 The Capture of New Orleans,1862 Keeping to starboard, Bailey led the way. Cayuga acted as a pilot boat, guiding the bigger Peiuacola and the six warships behind her toward Fort St. Philip. When Wuuahickon, the last vessel in Bailey's First Division, passed the Second Division, Commander Richard Wainwright fell in behind with Hartford, keeping to port and followed by Brooklyn and Richmond. Bell's division, led by Sciota under Commander Donaldson, fell in closely behind Richmond, but slightly farther to port. Porter's bummerslooked up from their guns and watched the fleet pass. For the first time in four days, an odd silence fell across the river. There was no sound but the swirling of the river and the pulsation of the passing fleet. Bummerschecked their loads and stared upriver, -waiting for the first sound of gunfire. On Harriet Lane, Porter waited for the signal to move up his gunboats. At 3:28 it came.Harriet Lane moved forward a short distance to port of Hartford, followed by W&tfieK), Ou>adco, Clifton, and Miami Fifteen minutes later Porter anchored his gunboats five hundred yards below Fort Jackson and opened fire on the water battery with shrapnel. The old sailing ship Portsmouth, towed by the gunboat Jackson, passed to starboard and anchored off the point just below Porter.3 Captain William B. Robertson of the 1st Louisiana Artillery had taken command of the water battery below Fort Jackson on April 15.The battery had no casemates or covered ways but was enclosed on three sides by earthen breastworks and surrounded by two moats. It was strictly an outwork mounting six guns and facing downriver. During Porter's earlier bombardment, two of the guns had been dismounted but repaired and returned to service. At 3:30 A.M. Sergeant Herman reported to Robertson that he detected several black, shapeless masses barely distinguishable from the surrounding darkness moving silently but steadily up the river. "Not a light was visible anywhere," Robertson observed. "Not a torch had been applied to a single fire-raft, and not one of them had been started from its moorings. As soon as I caught sight of the moving objects, I knew they were the enemy 's vessels, and I ordered the guns to be trained on the two in the lead, and to open fire on them."At 3:40 A.M. the guns of the water battery roared into action, followed by those from Forts Jackson and St. Philip. "The Federal vessels replied with their broadsides," Robertson observed, and "the flashes of the guns from both sides...

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