Combat· American Civil War
Attack on Port Hudson
A costly night attempt to run the last great Confederate stronghold on the lower Mississippi.
On the night of 14 March 1863, Farragut tried to force his squadron past the powerful batteries at Port Hudson, Louisiana, in a passage lit by the flames of the guns and the burning of his own grounded vessel. Only the flagship Hartford and a consort got through; the side-wheeler Mississippi ran aground under the batteries and had to be abandoned and burned. Aboard the Richmond, beaten back by the fire, a Confederate shell burst against a gun carriage and cut down the men around it, the ship's loss in the action coming to two killed and eight wounded, among them her Marine gun crew. Port Hudson held, and only fell after a long siege that ended in surrender on 9 July 1863, days after Vicksburg, opening the Mississippi from end to end.
Podcast episodes on American Civil War
Record no. 449