Farragut's
official association with the army, was the cordial good feeling and
co-operation which existed between the two services, and which were
equally manifested in the upper Mississippi between Grant and Porter.
General Butler, Farragut's first colleague in the Gulf and at New
Orleans, but who had long since left the department, wrote him a most
enthusiastic letter of congratulation upon receiving the news of the
battle of Mobile Bay; and General Granger, in concluding his report of
the siege operations against Gaines and Morgan, said: "I am pleased to
record the perfect harmony existing between these two branches of the
service. For my own part, I can not sufficiently acknowledge the
assistance rendered by the fleet and the admiral in command in
transporting and disembarking the troops, guns, and materials employed
by me in the operations. In brief, during all our relations, the
officers of the fleet, with their distinguished commander, displayed in
a high degree those qualities which mark their gallant service." To the
officers of the navy the testimonies thus given can not but be most
grateful; not merely as acknowledgments of the important part played by
a service whose work is too often ignored by historians, but chiefly as
giving an added lustre to the brilliant reputation of its two most
distinguished representatives, who successively filled the high position
of admiral of the navy.

After the capitulation of the forts, Admiral Farragut remained in Mobile
Bay until the following November. The lower bay was cleared of torpedoes
and reconnoissances made toward Mobile; but he wrote adversely to any
attempt against the city, now that it was sealed as a port to blockade
runners. "It would be an elephant," he wrote, "and take an army to hold
it. And besides, all the traitors and rascally speculators would flock
to that city and pour into the Confederacy the wealth of New York." He
confesses also his dislike to operations in very shoal water. "I am in
no way diffident about going anywhere in the Hartford, but when I have
to leave her and take to a craft drawing six feet of water I feel
badly."

The admiral's health was now suffering much from the combined effects of
his labors, his anxieties, and the climate. "I am as well as a man can
be who can neither sit, walk, nor stand five minutes at a time on
account of Job's comforters. But, thank God (I have so much to be
thankful for that I am thanking him all the tim