Saturday, September 18, 2010

Capture of New Orleans

FURTHER NEWS via HAVANA.

NEW YORK, May 7. – The steamer Columbia arrived from Havana, on the 3d. The gunboat Dan’l Smith arrived at Havana on the 30th, and Fort Jackson on the 26th.

The attack on the Rebel forts commenced on the 18th, and on the 23d, Com. Faragut [sic], in the Hartford, with 13 steamers passed the Forts, and Gen. Butler landed 4,000 men above.

The Rebels lost 11 gunboats and Hollin’s Turtle, Manassas.

Our forces took 400 prisoners. We lost 150 men and our gunboat Vienna, was sunk on the 24th.

A flag of truce was sent to Com. Porter, asking conditions for the surrender, to which porter replied, “no conditions.”

Our flag now waves over the Custom house.

An American war steamer reports capturing three rebel Steamers, and sending them to Key West, and chased another into the Bahia Honda.

Twenty mortar, and three gunboats were engaged against the Forts, silencing them after six days incessant firing.

The chains across the river were removed by our gunboats.

The rebels sent fire rafts down the river but they did little damage. One set fire to the Hartford, but was speedily extinguished.

The Vienna, and the rebel iron-clad steamer Webster, and a splendid engagement, the Webster running into the Vienna, and sinking her, but before going under, the Vienna’s crew poured in a volley of eight guns, so destructive and crushing, that both the Webster and Vienna went down together.

Arrangements for the surrender, were to be made on the 27th, the day after the dispatch left.

The ram Manassas was sunk by the steamship Mississippi.

Our forces sent a small boat to the fire rafts and towed them out of the way before they could do any harm. Rebel loss unknown.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, May 10, 1862, p. 3

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