Combat· American Civil War
Capture of New Orleans
The fall of the Confederacy's largest city and chief port, secured by Marines once the navy had forced the river.
After Farragut's fleet made its daring night passage of Forts Jackson and St. Philip below the city, the squadron came up to New Orleans, and Captain John Broome was sent ashore with a party of Marines from the flagship Hartford to take formal possession. The Marines raised the United States flag over the customs house and the federal buildings and kept order while a hostile mob raged in the streets, holding the city until the Army's occupation forces arrived. The seizure of New Orleans was the most important Union strategic success of the war's first year. The running of the forts was not bloodless: the Marine guard of the gunboat Iroquois, in the night battle below the city, suffered two killed and twenty-four wounded as the fleet fought its way past the Confederate defenses.
Podcast episodes on American Civil War
Record no. 23