What We Learned From… The Capture of New Orleans, 1862

t he outset of the Civil War, New Orleans, near the mouth of the Mississippi River, was the Confederacy’s largest city and port of trade. Its defenses were centered downriver at Forts Jackson and St. Philip, the river in between choked with sandbars that would inhibit the passage of big Union ships. In late 1861 U.S. Navy