The attack occurred after moonset in the early hours of October 12, 1861, and routed the Union fleet, which fled in disorder down the Southwest pass of the delta.

After sunrise Commodore George N. Hollins, running low on ammunition and fuel, ordered the mosquito fleet to withdraw upriver.

His efforts to assemble a fleet were undercut when Confederate President Jefferson Davis began to authorize the distribution of letters of marque and reprisal.

These projects, others authorized by Mallory, and civilian conversion of ships into privateers tied up most of the resources needed to construct or modify more vessels for the mosquito fleet.

Although New Orleans was the largest city in the Confederacy, the limitations of the Confederate industrial base hampered expansion of her fledgling navy.

The strategy of a Union blockade was formulated by General Winfield Scott and proclaimed by President Abraham Lincoln on April 19, 1861.

The arrival of these vessels was much sooner than anyone in New Orleans had imagined, and the panic-stricken rush that occurred when neutral shipping was given a fifteen-day grace period to vacate the port was an ugly dose of reality to stack against the concept of business as usual.

On October 10, 1861, McKean ordered four Union ships to occupy the Head of the Passes, closing all exits from the lower delta at one point.

Hollins responded by taking his flagship, CSS Calhoun, southward from New Orleans to concentrate the mosquito fleet at Fort Jackson.

Once there he sent CSS McRae with a boarding party under Lieutenant Alexander F. Warley to commandeer the privateer ironclad ram Manassas at gunpoint for the Confederate Navy.

After moonset on October 12, in the hours of early morning, Hollins took his fleet south to engage the Union force at the Head of Passes.

This vessel, a screw sloop with a ship rig, displaced 2,700 tons and mounted seven Dahlgren 9-inch smooth bores to a side and one rifled gun as a stern pivot.

Supporting the sail sloops was the Water Witch, a side-wheel steam powered gunboat mounting one 32-pound smoothbore and one rifled 12-pound howitzer.

The Manassas rang for flank speed, her engineers fed her fireboxes with the most flammable material on hand, and she surged forward in a dense cloud of black smoke and sparks from her stacks.

Alarmed by the rafts, the vessels of the Union fleet slipped their anchor cables and moved downriver along the Southwest Passage, firing at the Manassas while doing so.

Filling the ship with smoke while the crew cut loose the damaged stack, she grounded on the mud on the west bank of the head of the passes.

[19] In the last phase of the battle, Captain Handy of the Vincennes misread a signal the Richmond made to the vessels outside the bar to “Get Underway”.

Fortunately for the Vincennes, the engineer lit the fuse to the magazine as ordered, then cut off the burning end and threw it overboard.

Other than gleefully burning the timbers the Union fleet left at the Southwest Pass Lighthouse for a proposed shore battery, there was only a captured cutter filled with abandoned cutlasses and the crewless Toone.

The Richmond was not crushed with one blow, and once the Union fleet was underway the Manassas was completely ineffective, a one shot weapon system.

Flag-officer McKean, commanding the blockade at the river mouth stated, “…and I am sorry to be obliged to say that the more I hear and learn of the facts the more disgraceful it does appear.” Union Naval Secretary Gideon Wells referred to the incident as “Pope’s Run”.

Long after the event, Admiral David Dixon Porter stated, “Put this matter in any light you may, it is the most ridiculous affair that ever took place in the American Navy.” Despite the outrage, the damage was easily repaired.

The West Gulf Blockading Squadron was organized under the command of Flag Officer David G. Farragut and sent to the Mississippi delta in far greater force.