<P> Lovell loaded his troops and supplies aboard the New Orleans, Jackson and Great Northern railroad and sent them to Camp Moore, 78 miles (126 km) north . All artillery and munitions were sent to Vicksburg . Lovell then sent a last message to the War Department in Richmond, "The enemy has passed the forts . It is too late to send any guns here; they had better go to Vicksburg ." Military stores, ships, and warehouses were then burned . Anything considered useful to the Union, including thousands of bales of cotton, were thrown into the river . </P> <P> Despite the complete vulnerability of the city, the citizens along with military and civil authorities remained defiant . At 2: 00 p.m. on April 25, Admiral Farragut sent Captain Bailey, First Division Commander from the USS Cayuga, to accept the surrender of the city . Armed mobs within the city defied the Union officers and marines sent to city hall . General Lovell and Mayor Monroe refused to surrender the city . William B. Mumford pulled down a Union flag raised over the former U.S. mint by marines of the USS Pensacola and the mob destroyed it . Farragut did not destroy the city in response, but moved upriver to subdue fortifications north of the city . On April 29, Farragut and 250 marines from the USS Hartford removed the Louisiana State flag from the City Hall . By May 2, US Secretary of State William H. Seward declared New Orleans "recovered" and "mails are allowed to pass". </P> <P> On May 1, 1862, Maj. Gen. Benjamin Butler, with an army of 5,000 men, occupied the city of New Orleans without resistance . Butler was a former Democratic party official, lawyer, and state legislator . General Butler was one of the first Major Generals of Volunteers of the Civil War appointed by Abraham Lincoln . He had gained glory as a Massachusetts state militia general who had anticipated the war and carefully prepared his six militia regiments for the conflict . At the start of hostilities he immediately marched to the relief of Washington, D.C., and despite a lack of orders had occupied and restored order to Baltimore, Maryland . As a reward Butler was made commander of Fortress Monroe, on the Virginia Peninsula . There he gained further political renown as the first to practice confiscation of fugitive slaves as contraband of war . This practice was made a later policy of war by Congress . Due to these and other astute political maneuvers, Butler had been chosen to command the army expedition to New Orleans . Because of his lack of military experience and military success, many were happy to see him go . </P> <P> Butler was one of the most controversial and volatile personalities of the Civil War . He was infamous in New Orleans for his confrontational proclamations and corruption . If these things were all he was capable of, he could never have held the city, or prevented Confederate forces from re-capturing it . The impression had been created by Confederate officials and sympathizers that New Orleans and Louisiana were held by brute military force and terror . Butler was in fact a political general, awarded his position by excellent political connections and accomplishments . It was his political expertise that made his position in New Orleans tenable . He in no way had the military force necessary to hold it by force alone . His total military command numbered 15,000 troops . He was never sent reinforcements during the time he commanded in Louisiana . As Butler himself put it, "We were 2,500 men in a city...of 150,000 inhabitants, all hostile, bitter, defiant, explosive, standing literally in a magazine, a spark only needed for destruction ." His methods of preserving order were radical and totalitarian, even in the North and Europe, with the issue of Butler's General Order No. 28 ." </P>

Which union naval commander captured new orleans and the mouth of the mississippi river