Major Highlights for the week
Courtesy of the Minnesota Civil War Commemoration Task Force
Wednesday April 23, 1862
In addition to the skirmish that occurred at Bridgeport, Alabama, the Chesapeake and Albemarle Canal in North Carolina was successfully blocked, shutting off an important small-boat waterway. Flag Officer David Glasgow Farragut planned to pass his wooden deep-sea vessels past Forts Jackson and St. Philip the next morning and make a run on New Orleans.
Thursday April 24, 1862
About 3 a.m., Flag Officer David Glasgow Farragut’s fleet of 17 vessels, led by the U.S.S. Hartford, attempted to pass through the Confederate Mississippi River barricade. Eight of the vessels made it through untouched, but the remaining nine were caught in a cross fire from Forts Jackson and St. Philip. Once past the barricade, the fleet faced further peril from Confederate gunboats further upstream. Only the U.S.S. Varuna was lost with 37 men killed and 149 wounded. The Confederates lost eight vessels with 61 killed and 43 wounded. Farragut then advanced on New Orleans arriving at the undefended city the next day.
Friday April 25, 1862
With 11 vessels remaining from his original fleet of 17, Flag Officer David Glasgow Farragut reached New Orleans. Mayor John Monroe claimed he had no authority to surrender the city, nor did Confederate General Mansfield Lovell, who indicted that his forces were retiring from the city. A teenage girl in New Orleans wrote in her diary the immortal words, “We are conquered but not subdued.”
He Federal troops of John G. Parke opened a heavy fire on Fort Macon, near Beaufort, North Carolina. Late in the afternoon, Confederates under Colonel Moses J. White were forced to surrender. Even though casualties were light, another bastion of the Confederacy was gone.
Saturday April 26, 1862
Formal surrender ceremonies were held at Fort Macon, North Carolina, where the four-hundred strong Confederate garrison became prisoners of the Federals.
President Abraham Lincoln visited the French man-of-war vessel Gassendi at the Washington Navy Yard, to the crew’s shouts of “Vive le President.”
Flag Officer David Glasgow Farragut and New Orleans Mayor John Monroe continued surrender negotiations.
Sunday April 27, 1862
Four small forts – Livingston, Quitman, Pike and Wood – that protected New Orleans, surrendered to the Federal forces. Elsewhere, there was fighting at Pea Ridge, Tenn.; near Pittsburg Landing, Tenn.; at Bridgeport, Ala.; and at Haughton’s Mill near Pollocksville, North Carolina. A mutiny occurred at Fort Jackson, below New Orleans, as half of the stranded Confederate garrison departed.
Monday April 28, 1862
Surrounded and cut off from any hope of relief, Forts Jackson and St. Philip surrendered to the Federals, and completed the opening of the Mississippi River to New Orleans. Flag Officer David Glasgow Farragut threatened to bombard New Orleans unless the flag of the United States of America was respected.
At Nassau in the Bahamas, the British vessel Oreto arrived to be outfitted officially as the C.S.S. Florida, a Confederate raider.
Tuesday April 29, 1862
The massive army of Federal General Henry W. Halleck was completing its preliminary preparations for marching from Pittsburg Landing, Tenn., towards the Confederates at Corinth, Mississippi. Halleck had over 100,000 men in his army, one third greater than the Confederate troop strength of General P.G.T. Beauregard.
Federal officers raised the U.S. flag over the New Orleans Customs House and City Hall over the objections of the frustrated populace and city authorities.
Where Minnesota Regiments were the week of April 23-29, 1862
1st Minnesota Volunteer Infantry – Participated in the Siege of Yorktown, Virginia as part of McClellan’s Peninsula Campaign.
2nd Minnesota Volunteer Infantry – On duty around Pittsburg Landing, Tenn.
3rd Minnesota Volunteer Infantry – On April 27, moved from Nashville to Murfreesboro, Tenn. for garrison duty.
4th Minnesota Volunteer Infantry – On duty at Benton Barracks, Missouri.
5th Minnesota Volunteer Infantry – On garrison duty at Fort Snelling, Minn., with the exception of companies B, C and D which were detached for garrison duty elsewhere. Company B at Fort Ridgely, Minn., Company C at Fort Ripley, Minn., and Company D at Fort Abercrombie, Dakota Territory. The detached companies would serve in their outposts until November 1862.
Brackett’s Battalion of Minnesota Cavalry – Repaired roads and erected telegraph lines around Nashville, Tenn.
1st Minnesota Light Artillery Battery – In camp near Pittsburg Landing, Tenn.
2nd Independent Battery, Minnesota Light Artillery – On duty at Benton Barracks, Missouri.
1st United States Sharpshooters, Company I – En route from Fort Snelling, Minn. to Washington, D.C. arriving there on April 26.
2nd United States Sharpshooters, Company A – On duty at Falmouth, Virginia.
