Tuesday, April 29, 2008
This Day in the History of Small Chances of Success Reduced to Zero
On this day in 1862, because the rebel forces defending New Orleans had, days before, completely failed to stop a Union attack by ship, the second largest city in the South and its most important port fell. The North controlled the commercial terminus of the Mississippi river from early on in the war and would control the whole river by July 4, 1863. Really, what was the South thinking? Northern losses under the able Admiral Farragut, were negligible while the South lost nearly a thousand killed or wounded and 6 thousand captured. The North kept the entire U.S. Navy when the South left the union and used it well (except for the one day attack at Hampton Roads by the ironclad CSS Virginia) for the whole of the war.
Labels: American Civil War
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 6:13 AM 
