w Orleans and
the region below, including its defenses and the communications
therewith, were low-lying and intersected with numerous water-courses;
over such a navy naturally exercises a preponderating control. Above New
Orleans the low delta of the Mississippi extends, indeed, on the west
bank as far as the Red River, if it may not be said to reach to
Vicksburg and beyond; but on the east bank it ceases one hundred and
fifty miles from the city. From thence to Vicksburg, a distance of two
hundred and fifty miles, the stream is bordered by a series of bluffs
backing on a firm country of moderate elevation. Such positions are not
to be reduced from the water alone. On the contrary, if the water be a
narrow strip swept by their guns, they command it; while, from the
extent of country in their rear, they are not susceptible of isolation
by fleets above and below, as were Forts Jackson and St. Philip.

This series of bluffs became, therefore, the line upon which the
Confederates based their control of the Mississippi and maintained their
vital communications with Texas and the Red River region. It could be
reduced only by a military force; and to think of subduing it by a fleet
taking advantage of the panic following the fall of New Orleans, was
truly to rely upon moral effect without adequate physical force to
support it. It is due to the Navy Department to say that they expected
the army from the North to advance more rapidly than it did; but,
without seeking to assign the blame, the utterly useless penetration of
the United States fleet four hundred miles into the heart of the enemy's
country and its subsequent mortifying withdrawal, when contrasted with
the brilliant success resulting from Farragut's dash by the forts,
afford a very useful lesson in the adaptation of means to ends and the
selection of a definite objective, upon compassing which something
happens. The object of the United States Government being to control the
lower Mississippi, that was effected by means of isolating its defenses,
which then fell. When the further object was sought of controlling the
course of the stream above, the mere perambulation of a body of ships
effected nothing, because it aimed at nothing in particular, and could
have no effect upon the decisive points.

Of all these considerations Farragut was fully sensible; and, while he
obeyed his orders, he showed in his dispatches to the Department, and in
private letters of the same pe