The magnitude of this novel enterprise was scarcely realized at the North when the first news was received. It was heralded that Farragut had simply "run by the forts," and there was an evident desire on the part of some to belittle the importance of the circumstance, although it was afterward acknowledged, by both Federal and Confederate reports, that he had passed under a terrific fire.
Captain Bailey, in the Cayuga, preceding the flagship up the river to the Quarantine Station, captured the Chalmette regiment encamped on the river-bank.
On the morning of the 25th, the Cayuga still leading in the progress up-stream, the Chalmette batteries, three miles below New Orleans, were encountered. The Hartford and the Brooklyn, followed by several others coming up rapidly, soon silenced them - and now the city was fairly under Union guns. This result had cost the fleet thirty-seven men killed and one hundred forty-seven wounded.
Farragut appointed eleven o'clock of the morning of the 26th as the hour "for all the officers and crews of the fleet to return thanks to Almighty God for his great goodness and mercy in permitting us to pass through the events of the last two days with so little loss of life and blood."
“It is good to know our sins, that we may not flatter ourselves.”
–Thomas Watson, A Divine Cordial