The Capture of New Orleans, 1862

Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1995. First edition. First printing [stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. 292 pages. Gift sticker on bottom of title page. Includes Introduction, Epilogue, Appendix, Bibliography, and Index, as well as 20 black and white photographs following page 43, 6 black and white sketches and photographs of ships following page 109, 10 black and white battle scenes following page 156, and 7 black and white maps following page 210. Chester G. Hearn retired in 1990 to write books, the first of which appeared on the market the year he retired. Chet has written more than thirty published books, several of which have been alternate selections of the History Book Club, and he has appeared on the History Channel and A&E in Civil War related documentaries. His most recent books include Lincoln and McClellan at War (2012), The Civil War State by State (2011) and Lincoln the Cabinet and the Generals (2010). To understand the fall of New Orleans requires a study of command, something that can be adequately conducted only through study of all the official and unofficial correspondence exchanged between the principal players in both governments. It also requires attending to the opinions and impressions left by the people who lived through the crisis, alert to the petty jealousies that existed between the participants themselves. New of the loss of New Orleans came to Jefferson Davis and Secretary Stephen Mallory as an absolute shock. This short history attempts to explain why. Derived from a Kirkus review: A scholarly, blow-by-blow account of the naval battle for New Orleans, a little-known but pivotal Union victory early in the Civil War. When it fell in April 1862, the Crescent City was the largest and richest of the Confederacy, guardian of the strategically important Mississippi River. Why then did the South do so little to protect it? Military historian Hearn catalogues the follies that led to the city's loss, including abysmal communication, petty jealousies, and self-serving maneuvering that extended from Confederate field officers to President Jefferson Davis himself. Drawing primarily on correspondence among the principals, the author documents the siphoning of men, weapons, and supplies that left New Orleans vulnerable. Most damning was Richmond's unwillingness to take seriously the possibility of Union attack from the Gulf of Mexico: Despite a downriver skirmish between Louisiana's puny Mosquito Fleet and Federal warships, Davis continued to concentrate defensive preparations upriver. Hearn's microscopic examination of the mechanics of mobilization, reveals how thinly stretched were the fledgling nation's resources. The Confederate Navy had to be bailed out by private citizens; construction of two ironclads was delayed by a shipbuilder's strike. Alternating chapters describing the meticulous preparation of Union officer David Farragut form a stark, telling counterpoint to Confederate irresolution. An epilogue analyzes the consequences of Union victory, which provided a much needed morale boost, raised the first doubts about the viability of the Confederate government, and cemented Europe's neutrality. This was a History Book Club selection.