y on their guard, and had anticipated with unshaken courage,
but with gloomy forebodings, an attack during that very night. "There
will be no to-morrow for New Orleans," had said the undaunted commander
of Fort Jackson the day before, "if the navy does not at once move the
Louisiana to the position assigned to her," close to the obstructions.
The Louisiana was a powerful ironclad battery, not quite complete when
Farragut entered the river. She had been hurried down to the forts four
days before the passage of the fleet, but her engines could not drive
her, and the naval commander refused to take up the position, asked of
him by the military authorities, below St. Philip, where he would have a
cross fire with the forts, a close command of the line of obstructions,
and would greatly prolong the gantlet of fire through which the fleet
must run. To support the movement of the latter by drawing the fire and
harassing the gunners of the enemy, Commander Porter moved up with the
steamers of the mortar flotilla to easy range of the water battery under
Fort Jackson, which he engaged; while the mortar schooners, as soon as
the flash of the enemy's guns showed that the head of the column had
been discovered, opened a furious bombardment, keeping two shells
constantly in the air. Except for the annoyance of the bombs, the
gunners of the forts had it much their own way until the broadsides of
the Pensacola, which showed eleven heavy guns on either side, drew up
abreast of them. "The Cayuga received the first fire," writes Perkins,
"and the air was filled with shells and explosives which almost blinded
me as I stood on the forecastle trying to see my way, for I had never
been up the river before. I soon saw that the guns of the forts were all
aimed for midstream, so I steered close under the walls of Fort St.
Philip; and although our masts and rigging got badly shot through our
hull was but little damaged." Small as she was--five hundred tons--and
with the scanty top hamper of a schooner, the Cayuga was struck
forty-two times, below and aloft.

"After passing the last battery," continues Perkins, "and thinking we
were clear, I looked back for some of our vessels, and my heart jumped
up into my mouth when I found I could not see a single one. I thought
they all must have been sunk by the forts." This seeming desertion was
due to the fact that the heavy ships--the Pensacola, Mississippi, and
Oneida--had been detained by the resolute man