Spreading the News
This map, published by the Philadelphia Inquirer on April 30, 1862, shows the forts and other defenses standing between Captain David Farragut’s (1801–1870) naval squadron and the Confederacy’s largest city, New Orleans, a prime target in the Union’s quest to control the Mississippi River. All three vessels of Farragut’s fleet made it past the forts—stunning news to the people of New Orleans, where alarm bells rang and the Confederate garrison commander, Major General Mansfield Lovell, declared martial law. Newspapers and journals were among the most readily available and inexpensive sources of maps for the public. Occasionally produced in serial literature prior to the nineteenth century, maps were not published with any regularity until the American Civil War.
This map, published by the <em>Philadelphia Inquirer</em> on April 30, 1862, shows the forts and other defenses standing between Captain David Farragut’s (1801–1870) naval squadron and the Confederacy’s largest city, New Orleans, a prime target in the Union’s quest to control the Mississippi River. All three vessels of Farragut’s fleet made it past the forts—stunning news to the people of New Orleans, where alarm bells rang and the Confederate garrison commander, Major General Mansfield Lovell, declared martial law. Newspapers and journals were among the most readily available and inexpensive sources of maps for the public. Occasionally produced in serial literature prior to the nineteenth century, maps were not published with any regularity until the American Civil War.