ce with naval
officers the capacities of a seaman. He knew what ships could do and
what they could not; but to this common knowledge of sea officers,
gained by the daily habit of sea life, he had added the results of study
and reflection upon events passing elsewhere than under his own
observation. The experiences of the allied navies in the Crimean War had
convinced him that, if the wooden sides of ships could not be pitted in
prolonged stand-up fight against the stone walls of fortresses, they
were capable of enduring such battering as they might receive in running
by them through an unobstructed channel. This conviction received
support by the results of the attacks upon Hatteras Inlet and Port
Royal. He might, indeed, have gone much further back and confirmed his
own judgment as a seaman by the express opinion of an eminent soldier.
Nearly a hundred years before, Washington, at the siege of Yorktown, had
urged the French Admiral De Grasse to send vessels past Cornwallis's
works to control the upper York River, saying: "I am so well satisfied
by experience of the little effect of land batteries on vessels passing
them with a leading breeze that, unless the two channels near Yorktown
should be found impracticable by obstructions, I should have the
greatest confidence in the success of this important service."[C]

[Footnote C: _Washington's Letters_, October 1, 1781.]

In this conviction of Mr. Fox's lay the inception of the expedition
against New Orleans. It was, in his view, to be a purely naval attack.
Once over the bar at the mouth of the river, the channel as far as the
city had no natural obstruction, was clearly defined, and easily
followed, by day or night, without a pilot. The heavy current of the
early spring months, while it would retard the passage of the ships and
so keep them longer under fire, would make it difficult for the enemy to
maintain in position any artificial barrier placed by him. The works to
be passed--the seaward defenses of New Orleans, Forts Jackson and St.
Philip--were powerful fortifications; but they were ultimately dependent
upon the city, ninety miles above them, for a support which could come
only by the river. A fleet anchored above the forts lay across their
only line of communication, and when thus isolated, their fall became
only a question of time. The work proposed to the United States Navy
was, therefore, to turn the forts by passing their fire, seize their
line of communi