The Capture of New Orleans 1862

SIX: Father Neptune Picks a Captain

SIX Father Neptune Pick*) a Captain On the heeld of "Pope's Run, "Lieutenant David D. Porter returned to Southwest Pass on Powhatan on October 25, 1861. He had been on the trail ofSumter and its wily captain, Raphael Semmes, since August 16and never caught him. Porter was disappointed, because capturing Sumter may have meant a big promotion and more prize money. He had waited a long time for the promotion, and during his absence, he had been advanced a grade to commander , his new rank dating from April 22, but now all he had to lookforward to was more blockade duty, a duty he despised. To chase Semmes, Porter had pressed the ship hard, calling for the last ounce of steam as she tumbled through the seas, and the old side-wheeler was falling apart. "Her boilers were unfit for use," he wrote, and "she is rotten throughout... 25 feet of her false keel is knocked off, part of her forefront is gone, 500 sheets of copper are off the bottom, and what is left is loose." For the moment, Porter was spared further blockade duty. McKean ordered Porter and hisworn side-wheeler to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where they arrived on November 9. Bythen, Secretary Welles was in a better mood. Captain Samuel F. DuPont had just scored an important victory at Port Royal, demonstrating that with proper preparation, wooden warships could safely pass heavily embrasured enemy fortifications . Porter quickly observed that if DuPont could do it at Port Royal, perhaps it Could be done on the lower Mississippi. But there was a complication : he was only a commander,and a junior one at that, and a commander does not lead a flotilla of warships against heavy fortifications. Besides, the earthworks at Port Royal were sandhills compared to the powerful works at Jackson and St. Philip.' 1. ORN, XVI,750, 751, Porter to McKean and McKean to Welles, October 25, 28, 1861;West, Father Neptune Pickj a Captain 97 Leaving Powhatan in New York, Porter took a train to his homein Georgetown. He had not seen his family for seven months, but he stopped barely long enough to greet his wife and children. An idea sputtering in the back of his mind had taken shape during the sweltering months off Southwest Pass and the days at sea chasing Semmes. Porter had hesitated to discuss it with any of his superiors, but DuPont's victory opened the way. Now, -while on leave, he would see his friend Assistant Naval Secretary Fox, who would know what to do and how best to do it. A lowly commander had no business barging in upon the secretary of the navy with a \vild plan to capture New Orleans. Porter found Fox friendly but uncommunicative, and he tried but could not obtain an interview with "Father Neptune." On November 12, helingered at the Naval Office untilhe spotted two Republican senators ofthe Naval Affairs Committee, John P. Hale of New Hampshire and James W. Grimes of Iowa. Both stood chatting outside the entrance to Welles's office. They greeted Porter warmly and asked what businessbrought him to Washington. When Porter replied "to laya proposition for the capture of New Orleans before the Secretary of the Navy," the senators listened approvingly and invited himto join them for a meetingwith the secretary.2 Welles had heard of Porter but not met him, although he mighthave known the commander's reputation as a somewhat devisiveopportunist prone to taking independentaction. If membersof the Naval Affairs Committee thought Porter had somethingof value to say, Welles-would listen. Besides, the granite-tough, black-bearded commander with the flashing dark eyes appeared to be a naval officer who got thingsdone.3 Among the Union's naval officers, probably no one knew the lower Mississippi better than Porter. He had served with the Coastal Survey, resided briefly in New Orleans as a naval recruiting officer during the Mexican War, and afterward captained the mailsteamer Crescent City on her regular run between New York, Havana, and New Orleans. He knewthe river, its outlets, and its bars; he had visited the nearby lakes and bays; and in his regular trips to New Orleans, he may have stopped at the ramSecond Admiral, 105-12, 114. 2. David Dixon Porter, Incidents andAnecdotu of the Civil War (New York, 1885), 64. The date of the meeting is not clear. Airs. Gustavus Vasa Fox's diary in the Blair Papers, Library of Congress, places the discussion on November...