On April 28 the two
forts, isolated by what had taken place, surrendered. On May 1 General
Butler began in the city that efficient regime which so exasperated the
men of the South. On May 7 Baton Rouge, the state capital, was occupied,
without resistance; and Natchez followed in the procession on May 12.
[Illustration: The Fight Between The Monitor And The Merrimac]
With one Union fleet at the mouth of the Mississippi and another at
Island No. 10, and the Union army not far from the riverside in
Kentucky and Tennessee, the opening and repossession of the whole stream
by the Federals became a thing which ought soon to be achieved. On June
5 the gunboat fleet from up the river came down to within two miles of
Memphis, engaged in a hard fight and won a complete victory, and on the
next day Memphis was held by the Union troops. Farragut also, working in
his usual style, forced his way up to Vicksburg, and exchanged shots
with the Confederate batteries on the bluffs. He found, however, that
without the cooeperation of a land force he could do nothing, and had to
drop back again to New Orleans, arriving there on June 1. In a few weeks
he returned in stronger force, and on June 27 he was bombarding the
rebel works. On June 28, repeating the operation which had been so
successful below New Orleans, he ran some of his vessels by the
batteries and got above the city. But there was still no army on the
land, and so the vessels which had run by, up stream, had to make the
dangerous gauntlet again, down stream, and a second time the fleet
descended to New Orleans.
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