In a sense, no one did. Upon his arrival in the port, Farragut sent in a group of marines to hoist the Stars and Stripes, but they were soon hauled down. The city was on the verge of complete disintegration for the next three days, with the mayor saying he had no authority to yield while anarchy threatened. There were some terrible stories, some too terrible to credit, the most notable of them being that a group of Confederate cavalry fired into a group of unarmed civilians that had the nerve to applaud the raising of the federal flag. Though Farragut was master of the city in a military sense—his big guns saw to it—he did not really gain control of the area until April 30, 1862. One day later, thousands of federal troops—led by General Benjamin Butler—arrived.