the defense,
either of the bay or, later, of the city. He was deceived, probably,
from the fact that the Confederates themselves were deceived, with the
exception of a few who had more intimate knowledge of their real value;
and consequently the reports that were brought off agreed in giving them
a character which they did not deserve.

An attack upon Mobile had been a cherished project with General Grant
after the fall of Vicksburg. It was to that--and not to the unfortunate
Red River expedition of 1864--that he would have devoted Banks's army in
the Southwest; moving it, of course, in concert with, so as to support
and be supported by, the other great operations which took place that
year--Sherman's advance upon Atlanta and his own against Richmond. It
was to Mobile, and not to Savannah, that he first looked as the point
toward which Sherman would act after the capture of Atlanta; the line
from Atlanta to Mobile would be that along which, by the control of the
intervening railroad systems, the Confederacy would again be cleft in
twain, as by the subjugation of the Mississippi. For this reason chiefly
he had, while still only commander of the Army of the Tennessee, and
before he succeeded to the lieutenant-generalship and the command of all
the armies, strenuously opposed the Red River expedition; which he
looked upon as an ex-centric movement, tending rather to keep alive the
war across the Mississippi, which would fade if left alone, and likely
to result in the troops engaged not getting back in time or in condition
to act against Mobile.

As Grant feared, so it happened. The expedition being already organized
and on the point of starting when he became commander-in-chief, he
allowed it to proceed; but it ended in disaster, and was the cause of
forty thousand good troops being unavailable for the decisive operations
which began two months later. Not until the end of July could a force be
spared even for the minor task of reducing the Mobile forts; and until
then Farragut had to wait in order to attack to any purpose. By the time
the army in the Southwest, in the command of which General Canby
relieved Banks on the 20th of May, was again ready to move, Sherman had
taken Atlanta, Hood had fallen upon his communications with Chattanooga,
and the famous march to the sea had been determined. Farragut's battle
in Mobile Bay therefore did not prove to be, as Grant had hoped, and as
his passage of the Mississippi forts had