April 17, 1862

April 17, 1862: On this date, Commander David Dixon Porter, Commodore Farragut’s foster-brother, has finally assembled his mortar flotilla around a bend downriver from Forts Jackson and St. Philip. At Farragut’s order, they open fire, lofting shells into the two forts at frequent intervals. The Battle of New Orleans has begun.

Map of the Mississippi, featuring Ft. Jackson (on the left) and Fort St. Philip, just upstream on the right

—In the city of New Orleans, Gen. Mansfield Lovell, commander of the garrison there, has sworn all white males in the city to an Oath of Allegiance to the Confederacy, in anticipation of an impending Yankee attack. The Confederates know that Flag Officer David G. Farragut has collected a large fleet on the lower river, just downstream from Forts Jackson and St. Philip, which were sited to prevent an enemy incursion upriver from the Gulf. Lovell’s forces had been depleted in recent months by having sent 5,000 men to the defense of Ft. Donelson (and who are now prisoners) and another few brigades to join Johnston’s and Beauregard’s army for the action at Shiloh. Lovell’s naval forces have also been diminished, and what is available is divided amongst three entities: The Confederate State Navy, the State of Louisiana Navy, and the Army. The ironclads CSS Mississippi and CSS Louisiana are nearing completion, however, and promise to be powerful vessels when finished.

—Pres. Lincoln’s bill for compensated emancipation of all slaves in the District of Columbia becomes law effective today.

—George Templeton Strong writes in his journal:

Lincoln has signed the Emancipation Bill. Has any president, since this country came into being, done so weighty an act? The federal government is now clear of all connection with slaveholding. We are uneasy about McClellan. He is in a tight place, possibly in a trap, and the cabal against him in Washington may embarrass and weaken him. I am sorry to believe that McDowell is privy to it. He knows better, I am sure, but ambition tempts men fearfully.

—The Daily Journal, a newspaper in Wilmington, North Carolina, publishes this rather skeptical, dubious editorial in response to the Conscription Act just passed in Richmond:

These extreme stretches of power can find their justification only in that kind of overruling necessity which permits a man to take a human life in self-defence. However sufficient the justification, the necessity must always be a painful one, and the decision upon its existence, involves a deep responsibility. So in this case. We must look upon the action of the law as merely temporary. like martial law. We must look upon its character as not otherwise reconcilable with our ideas of civil freedom. But as we must submit for a time to many things, from a sense of duty and conviction of their necessity, so we will submit to this, when equally convinced.—We cannot be so with our present knowledge. We cannot say, until we hear more, that the further knowledge will not convince us.

—John Beauchamp Jones, a senior clerk in the Confederate War Department in Richmond, comments frankly in his journal about the martial law in place in Richmond:


APRIL 17TH.—To-day Congress passed an act providing for the termination of martial law within thirty days after the meeting of the next session. This was as far as they could venture; for, indeed, a majority seem to be intimidated at the glitter of bayonets in the streets, wielded by the authority of martial law. The press, too, has taken the alarm, and several of the publishers have confessed a fear of having their offices closed, if they dare to speak the sentiments struggling for utterance. It is, indeed, a reign of terror! Every Virginian, and other loyal citizens of the South—members of Congress and all—must now, before obtaining Gen. Winder’s [provost marshal] permission to leave the city for their homes, bow down before the aliens in the Provost Marshal’s office, and subscribe to an oath of allegiance, while a file of bayonets are pointed at his back!

—Kate Cumming, a young volunteer nurse at the Confederate Army hospital at Corinth, Mississippi, writes in her journal:


April 17.—I was going round as usual this morning, washing the faces of the men, and had got half through with one before I found out that he was dead. He was lying on the gallery by himself, and had died with no one near him. These are terrible things, and, what is more heart-rending, no one seems to mind them. I thought that my patients were all doing well. Mr. Wasson felt better, and knew that he would soon go home. I asked the surgeon who was attending him about his condition, and was much shocked when I learned that neither he nor Mr. Regan would live to see another day. This was a sad trial to me. I had seen many die, but none of them whom I had attended so closely as these two. I felt toward them as I do toward all the soldiers—as if they were my brothers. I tried to control my feelings before Mr. W., as he was so hopeful of getting well, but it was a hard task. Ho looked at me once and asked me what was the matter; was he going to die? I asked him if he was afraid. He replied no; but he was so young that he would like to live a little longer, and would like to see his father and mother once more. I did what I could to prepare him for the great change which was soon to come over him, but I could not muster courage to tell him that he was going to die.