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The city of New Orleans was the most valuable city in the Confederacy. The loss of the city took a huge blow to the Confederacy. The lower Mississippi had become a Union’s passage for the 400 miles to Vicksburg, Mississippi. In the middle of the night on April 24, Admiral David G. Fraught tried an attempt of getting 19 motor boats, 24 gunboats, and 15,000 soldiers past the two forts, Jackson and SST. Phillip. The Union’s navy had 43 ships under the command of Admiral David G. Fraught. Fraught had ordered the ships to enter at the lower end of the Mississippi near New Orleans.
The confederates had heavy chain cables that were stretched across the river for a main defense. This defense failed. Despite the city’s vulnerability the military and the citizens remained defiant. On April 25, General Lovely and Mayor Monroe refused to surrender the city, but William B. Muffed lowered the Union flag and put up the former United States flag. In response, Fraught did not destroy the city, but just traveled up the river. Major General Mansfield Lovely realized that resistance was meaningless. He decided to withdrawal his 3,000 troops north. The city of
New Orleans had fallen on April 28, 1862. On April 29, Fraught and 250 marines from the ISIS Hartford, took down the Louisiana State flag from the City Hall. On May 1 , 1862 Major General Benjamin Franklin Butler led his 1 5,000 troops into New Orleans to take over the remainder of the city. The Union then had control Of the entire Mississippi. The Confederates soon ran low on supplies. The Union had a bigger advantage. A part in the Union’s Anaconda plan was to control the Mississippi. The battle of New Orleans was about who controls the Mississippi River.