er," and secure his end of
controlling the lower Mississippi. There was only one road practicable
to ships to pass above, and that led openly and directly under the fire
of the forts; but having passed this, they were planted across the
communications as squarely as if they had made a circuit of hundreds of
miles, with all the secrecy of Bonaparte in 1800 and in 1805. Are
strongholds never "captured" unless by "actual attack"? Did Ulm and
Mantua yield to blows or to isolation?

Such, certainly, was the opinion of the able officers who conducted the
Confederate defense, and whose conduct, except in matters of detail, was
approved by the searching court of inquiry that passed upon it. "In my
judgment," testified General M. L. Smith, who commanded the interior
line of works and was in no way responsible for the fall of Forts St.
Philip and Jackson, "the forts were impregnable _so long as they were in
free and open communication with the city_. This communication was not
endangered while the obstruction existed. The conclusion, then, is
briefly this: While the obstruction existed the city was safe; when it
was swept away, as the defenses then existed, it was in the enemy's
power."[L] General Lovell, the commander-in-chief of the military
department, stated that he had made preparations to evacuate New Orleans
in case the fleet passed the fort by sending out of the city several
hundred thousand rations and securing transport steamers. He continued:
"In determining upon the evacuation of the city I necessarily, as soon
as the enemy's fleet had passed the forts, regarded the position _the
same as if both their army and navy were present before the city_,
making due allowance simply for the time it would take them to transport
their army up. Inasmuch as their ships had passed Forts Jackson and St.
Philip, _they could at once place themselves in open and uninterrupted
communication with their army at points from six to twenty miles above
the forts through various small water communications from the Gulf_,
made more available by the extraordinary height of the river, and which,
while they (we?) were in possession of the latter, I had easily and
without risk defended with launches and part of the river-defense fleet.
I had also stationed Szymanski's regiment at the Quarantine for the same
object. These were, however, all destroyed or captured by the enemy's
fleet after they got possession of the river between the forts and the
cit