guns and funnels hung like a pall over both the combatants while
the desperate fight went on.

At last the fleet fought through and reached the clearer
atmosphere above the forts; all but the last three gunboats,
which were driven back by the fire. Then Farragut immediately
sent word to General Benjamin F. Butler that the troops could be
brought up by the bayous that ran parallel to the river out of
range of the forts. But the General, having taken in the
situation at a glance from a transport just below the scene of
action, had begun to collect his men at Sable Island, twelve
miles behind Fort St. Philip, long before Farragut's messenger
could reach him by way of the Quarantine Bayou. From Sable Island
the troops were taken by the transports to a point on the
Mississippi five miles above Fort St. Philip.

After a well-earned rest the whole fleet moved up to New Orleans
on the twenty-fifth, turning the city's lines five miles
downstream without the loss of a man, for the simple reason that
these had been built only to resist an army, and so lay with
flanks entirely open to a fleet. General Lovell (the able
commander who had so often warned the Confederate Government of
the danger from the sea) at once evacuated the defenseless city.
The best of the younger men were away with the armies. The best
of the older men were too few for the storm. And so pandemonium
broke loose. Burning boats, blazing cotton, and a howling mob
greeted Farragut's arrival. But after the forts (now completely
cut off from their base) had surrendered on the twenty-eighth a
landing party from the fleet soon brought the mob to its senses
by planting howitzers in the streets and lowering the Confederate