The success of the Union officers on the eastern coast, was not as easily completed on the Southern coast. The forts on the lower Mississippi were much stronger and older, with more professionally trained soldiers. The two forts were located near the mouth of the Mississippi and only 700 yards apart. Second, the Mississippi was blocked by a chain of logs all the way across, preventing any ship from easily steaming up stream.
Farragut had a plan, even with the odds against him. He planned to move his mortar boats within in range of the forts, then he would bombard them until their defenses were weakened enough for the sloop ships (or cannon ships) to pass between the forts shelling them until there was nothing left of the two forts. Farragut and his ships ran into trouble when they first entered the Mississippi because of a shallow sandbar, setting them back almost a month. On April 17th the move was complete and the mortar ships were in place and the first mortar shell was fired. The rain of fire continued for nearly a week before Farragut moved his sloop ships. The maneuver through the log chain was easy enough for mortar shells had bombarded that too. Now the ships began to move between the two forts and the forts opened fire. The firing from the cannons, damaging some the boats heavily, lit up the night sky. Ten out of Farragut's thirteen boats made it through, though, and now the forts were trapped. Farragut landed his army ashore near Fort St. Phillip and within another week the two forts crumbled.
Not wanting to wait for his army, Farragut steamed his warships up the Mississippi towards New Orleans. His large boats were literally able to command the streets, for the spring flood had just recently come. Within a week of his arrival in New Orleans Farragut's army began the not-so-easy occupation of the town.
The capture of New Orleans and part of southern Louisiana was a great victory for the Union. It deprived the Confederates of a major sea port in the south and it helped to tighten the grip on the Confederates along the Mississippi River with the help of victories in the North. It made the possibility of splitting the Confederate army in two.