The merry click of the pawls as the men walked around the great capstans soon rose on the still air--rose so high that it reached up to the sentinels on Fort Jackson and roused the garrison to a knowledge that an important action impended. It was a long task to get the anchors of the largest ships, for they were breasting a three-knot current, but soon after 3 o’clock they all got under way, and Porter’s mortars, firing as fast as the men could tong the shells into them, began drawing an almost unbroken arch of fiery bombs from the schooners to Fort Jackson. The nation had never seen such a display of fireworks as that. At 3.30 o’clock precisely the division leader _Cayuga_ passed in silence through the barrier, followed by the huge _Pensacola_, and then a flaming storm broke loose from the forts. Huge piles of wood were lighted on the shore to illuminate the river, and away upstream the blaze of fire-rafts opened the murk of night to reveal the Confederate ships, weird and indistinct of outline, scattered along the shores. The Union gunboats dashed ahead at full speed, but the _Pensacola_ and _Mississippi_ steamed slowly, their black hulls at regular intervals sheeting the air with lurid fire as they replied to the forts. Abreast of St. Philip, where the Confederate fire was hottest, they drew in so close that the gunners afloat and those ashore heartily cursed each other as they worked. With fierce energy the men ashore drove shot and shell into the wooden ships, while those afloat dusted the rampart with hurtling showers of grape and canister. And these were showers that no man could face, and the garrison fled to cover for a moment, but they returned again as the blasts ceased with the passing of each ship. For the first division it was at first but a simple journey. They were through the barrier and away before the Confederates fully realized what was upon them. But for Farragut, at the head of the second division, it was another matter. The clouds of smoke from the batteries settled low upon the water to blind the pilots, and then came the blazing fire-rafts to add to the confusion and the danger. As it happened, it was the _Hartford_ that caught the first of these rafts. She had grounded in the smoke and was trying to back off, when the Confederate tug _Mosher_ shoved the flaming barge against her. In an instant the paint on the whole side of the ship was flaming up almost to the lower yards. [Illustration: Porter’s Mortar Fleet. Farragut’s Fleet Passing the Forts. Beginning of the Battle of New Orleans. _From a painting by Admiral Walke._] As the flames rose, the men at the guns on that side drew back, but they faced the danger again as Farragut shouted: “Don’t flinch from that fire, boys; there’s a hotter fire than that for those who don’t do their duty.”