oon as the Confederates descried the advancing fleet, they lighted
great fires along the banks and opened a terrific cannonade. Blazing
fire-rafts threw a lurid glare against the sky. The fleet, pausing a few
minutes to discharge their broadsides into the forts, steamed on up the
river; Farragut's flagship grounded under the guns of Fort St. Philip,
and a fireship, blazing a hundred feet in the air, floated against her
and set her on fire, but the flames were extinguished, the flagship
backed off, and headed again up the stream. Before the coming of dawn,
the entire fleet, with the exception of three small boats, had passed
the forts and were grappling with the Confederate squadron above. Of
this, short work was made. Some of the enemy's vessels were driven
ashore, some were run down, others were riddled with shot--and the
proudest city of the South lay at Farragut's mercy.

On the first day of May, the United States troops under General Butler,
marched into the city, and Farragut, glad to be relieved of an
unpleasant task, proceeded up the river, ran by the batteries at
Vicksburg, assisted at the reduction of Port Hudson, and finally sailed
for New York in his flagship, the Hartford, arriving there in August,
1863. He had already been commissioned rear-admiral, and he was given a
most enthusiastic reception, for his passage of the Mississippi was
recognized as an extraordinary feat. An examination of his ship showed
that she had been struck 240 times by shot and shell in her nineteen
months of service.

Immediately after the surrender of New Orleans, Farragut had desired to
proceed against the port of Mobile, Alabama, which was so strongly
fortified that all attempts to close it had been in vain, and which was
the only important port left open to the Confederates. But the
government decided that Mobile could wait a while, and sent him,
instead, to open the Mississippi. That task accomplished, the time had
come for him to attempt the greatest of his career--greater, even, than
his capture of New Orleans, and much more hazardous. In the spring of
1864, he was in the Gulf, preparing for the great enterprise.

Mobile harbor was defended by works so strong and well-placed that it
was considered well-nigh impregnable. The Confederates had realized the
importance of keeping this, their last port, open, so that they could
communicate with the outer world, and had spared no pains to render it
so strong that they believed no a