Union infantry arrives at Ship Island, Mississippi in the first build-up of forces intending to capture New Orleans

Confederate forces abandoned Ship Island, on the Gulf Coast, in the autumn and the area was under the control of U.S. Marines and Navy shore parties.  Massachusetts and Connecticut volunteer infantry units, the advanced guard of the force General Benjamin Butler would use to take New Orleans, around sixty miles away, arrived under the command of Vermont-born Brigiadier-General John Wolcott Phelps.  (By John Osborne)