cations--the upper river--and their base, New Orleans,
and then to give over the latter to the army, which engaged to furnish a
force sufficient to hold the conquest.

Having first taken the necessary, but strictly preliminary, step of
seizing as a depot Ship Island, in Mississippi Sound, about a hundred
miles from the mouth of the river, Mr. Fox's proposition, which had been
adopted by the Secretary of the Navy, was submitted to the President.
Mr. Lincoln, himself a Western man, unfamiliar with maritime matters and
engrossed with the idea of invasion from the north, was disposed to be
incredulous of success; but with his usual open-mindedness consented to
a full discussion before him by experts from both services. A meeting
was therefore held with General McClellan at his headquarters. There
were present, besides the President, the Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Fox,
and Commander David D. Porter, who had recently returned from service
off the mouth of the Mississippi. The antecedents of General McClellan
were those of an officer of the engineers, who are generally disposed to
exaggerate the powers of forts as compared with ships, and to
contemplate their reduction only by regular approaches; just as an
officer of the line of the army, looking to the capture of a place like
New Orleans, will usually and most properly seek first a base of
operations, from which he will project a campaign whose issue shall be
the fall of the city. To this cause was probably due the preference
observed by the Navy Department to exist in army circles, for an attack
upon Mobile first. Being close to the sea, which was completely under
the control of the navy, the necessary land operations would begin under
far more favorable conditions, and could be more easily maintained than
in the alluvial soil of the Mississippi delta. McClellan, who was an
accomplished master of his profession in all its branches, received at
first the impression that regular military operations against New
Orleans by way of the river were being proposed to him, and demurred;
but, on learning that the only demand was for a force to hold the city
and surroundings in case of success, he readily consented to detail ten
or fifteen thousand troops for the purpose. Though more hazardous, the
proposition of the Navy Department was in principle strategically sound.
The key of the position was to be struck for at once, and the outlying
defenses were expected then to fall by the seve