Major General Franklin Gardner stared through the blackness of night at the stars reflected on the fast-flowing river. A native New Yorker, he had seen service in the Mexican War and fought Indians on the frontier. He had offered his services to the Confederacy because of his love for his wife, the daughter of Louisiana governor Alexandre Mouton, and his affection for his friends and neighbors that had come after many years of living in Baton Rouge.

Port Hudson had great strategic value. The Confederates had fortified the bluffs and thrown up earthworks on the land side because it gave them control of the Red River, as well as the Mississippi. As long as they held the Red River, supplies and troops could be brought into the Confederacy from Mexico through Texas. Gardner’s orders were to hold at all cost against the assault by Union General Nathaniel Banks and his troops. He would hold out for forty-eight days before surrendering during the first week of July.

In his early forties, Gardner was of medium height and slender, with sparse reddish hair. He peered into the darkness through a pair of binoculars for a few moments before lowering them. “I have a feeling Farragut will come before dawn.”

Lieutenant Wilfred Pratt of Company K, in command of the nearby gun, its muzzle pointed down to fire in the middle of the river, nodded in agreement. “I wouldn’t put it past them sneaky Yanks to make a try in the wee hours while it’s still dark.”

“It should be an interesting battle,” murmured Gardner, satisfied that his eighteen guns were well concealed in their emplacements and ready for action.

He and his seven-thousand-man force would soon be surrounded and besieged by a Union army, the same as their comrades at Vicksburg 110 miles upstream. Both positions were of vital importance to the Confederacy. As long as they controlled their positions above the Mississippi, it was too hazardous and costly in ships and men for the Union gunboats and transports to risk passage.

Gardner lifted his glasses again. “What time do you have?”

Lieutenant Pratt pulled a watch from a breast pocket by a gold chain, lit a match, and peered at the dial. “I have three minutes to eleven o’clock, sir.”

The words were barely uttered when two red rockets soared into the night sky, breaking the stillness of the air as they burst above the river. Captain Whitfield Youngblood of Gardner’s signal corps had ordered the rockets launched upon seeing the red light on the masthead of Farragut’s flagship Hartford, as the vessel passed his station. The Confederates were neither deceived nor surprised. Their eighteen big guns roared and flashed in a deafening crescendo of thunderclaps that never seemed to end.

Gardner and Pratt watched mesmerized as the Union fleet steadily moved up the river, their black hulls blending in with the dark river. The bedlam mushroomed as the combined 112 guns of the Union fleet, those of the ironclad Essex, and the mortar boats tied along the east bank blasted back in reply. The great thirteen-inch mortar shells with their burning fuses rose and fell like meteors within the Confederate fortifications. The sky became a giant fireworks display. The ground shuttered and vibrated as if rolled by an earthquake. The fiery spurts from the gun muzzles blazed and then blinked dark as their crews rammed new charges and shot down their smoking barrels.

Soon the smoke was so thick that gunners on both sides could only sight their guns on the enemy’s flashes. Confederate sharpshooters in rifle pits added to the maelstrom clatter as they fired at ships, hoping to bring down the crewmen.

“It won’t be easy swinging around the bend,” said Farragut’s pilot on board Hartford. George Alder stared down into the black water surging past the frigate’s hull. Then he glanced woefully at the gunboat Albatross that was lashed along the frigate’s port side. “Not with two ships tied side by side against a four-knot current.”

“The current is the least of my concern,” came the staunch reply. “Just keep us in the center of the river.”

Admiral David Glasgow Farragut, a tough Scot with a perennial smile, stood imperturbable. He was as unstirred as a rock assaulted by heavy surf — an image he’d displayed in the battle for New Orleans, as well as one for which he would become famous later, at the battle of Mobile Bay, when he’d ignore the Confederate minefield after losing one of his monitors and shout, “Damn the torpedoes! Full steam ahead!”

The opposite of General Gardner, Farragut came from the South. Though he’d been born in Tennessee, was raised in Louisiana, and lived in Virginia, he was devoted to the United States. After moving his family north, he’d joined the Union and was named flag officer in command of the West Gulf’s blockading squadron.

After his great victory at New Orleans, he was determined to run this fleet upriver to Vicksburg to try to aid General Grant in his siege of the city. Farragut turned and surveyed the ships lined up behind Hartford. The frigate Richmond, with the gunboat Genesee alongside, was directly astern. Then came the frigate Monongahela, tied to the gunboat Kineo. And finally the “old spinning wheel,” as the frigate Mississippi was affectionately called because of her antiquated paddle wheels.

Bullets whizzed through the riggings as the rebel riflemen aimed high through the smoke, causing few casualties among Hartford’s crew. The forty-two-gun sloop of war pushed through the smoke and was almost clear of the worst of the fire when the current caught her and swept her bow toward the Port Hudson batteries.

“The damned current!” shouted Alder. “I can’t hold her.”

A signal was quickly shouted across the bulwarks to the captain of Albatross to reverse his engines while Hartford’s engineer poured on the coal full steam ahead. Slowly, the two ships swung on a ninety-degree angle upriver and steamed out of range of the deadly guns.

Farragut was wise enough to know that Hartford and Albatross were lucky. The Confederates had not depressed their guns low enough to do damage to the Union ships, but they were not about to make the same mistake as the next ships in line came within range.

“I’m afraid the rest of the fleet is in for the worst of it,” he said apprehensively, as he saw a fire erupt from an old house on the west bank. The Confederates had obviously ignited it to light up the river and reveal the Union fleet.

Farragut was especially concerned about the last ship in line. Mississippi was the oldest steamer in naval service. A hardened battle veteran, she had proved her worth in the run past the forts below New Orleans. By the time it was her turn to run the gauntlet, the Confederate gunners would have had time to zero in on her with deadly accuracy. She was about to find herself in the most exposed position of the entire fleet.

Throughout the nearly 250 years of its existence, the U.S. Navy has been blessed with any number of ships that contributed proud and illustrious service. Some benefit from household names like Bonhomme Richard, Monitor, Arizona, and Enterprise. But many others, with careers no less distinguished, are neglected and forgotten by all but a few naval historians. One such ship was the U.S.S. Mississippi.

The second to be built of the Navy’s oceangoing armed steamships, Mississippi was commissioned on December 22, 1841, shortly before her sister ship, Missouri. Commodore Matthew C. Perry personally supervised her construction, and she was named after the mighty river that flowed through the heart of the country.

Mississippi was a side-wheel steamer 229 feet in length with a beam of 40 feet and a depth of 19 feet. Her original gun battery consisted of two 10-inch and eight 8-inch guns. She had a respectable top speed of 8 knots, and she carried a crew of 280.