orses could carry
him.

"A rumor of the fight and its results had already reached the city, and
when he confirmed it a scene of wild excitement ensued; soldiers hurried
to and fro, women were in the street bareheaded, brandishing pistols,
and screaming, 'Burn the city! Never mind us! Burn the city!'

"Merchants fled from their stores, and military officers impressed
vehicles to carry cotton to the levees to be burned. Four millions of
dollars in specie was sent out of the city by railway; foreigners
crowded to the consulates to deposit money and other valuables for
safety, and Twiggs, the traitor, fled, leaving to the care of a young
woman the two swords that had been awarded him for his services in
Mexico.

"Lovell believed that he had not a sufficient number of troops to
defend the city, and convinced the city authorities that such was the
fact. Then he proceeded to disband the conscripts and to send munitions
of war, stores of provisions, and other valuable property to the country
by railroad and steamboats. Some of the white troops went to Camp Moore,
seventy-eight miles distant, by the railroad, but the negro soldiers
refused to go.

"The next morning Farragut came on up the river, meeting on the way
blazing ships filled with cotton floating down the stream. Then
presently he discovered the Chalmette batteries on both sides of the
river only a few miles below the city. The river was so full that the
waters gave him complete command of those confederate works, and,
causing his vessels to move in two lines, he set himself to the task of
disabling them.

"Captain Bailey in the _Cayuga_ was pressing gallantly forward and did
not notice the signal to the vessels to move in close order. He was so
far ahead of the others that the fire of the enemy was for a time
concentrated upon his vessel; for twenty minutes she sustained a heavy
cross fire alone. But Farragut hastened forward with the _Hartford_,
and, as he passed the _Cayuga_, he gave the batteries heavy broadsides
of grape, shell and shrapnel; so heavy were they that the first
discharge drove the Confederates from their guns. The other vessels of
the fleet followed the _Hartford's_ example, and in twenty minutes the
batteries were silenced and the men running for their lives.

"Oh, what a fearful scene our vessels passed through! The surface of the
river was strewn with blazing cotton bales, burning steamers and
fire-rafts, all together sending up clouds of d