? The difficulty of arranging
any system of signals or light despatch-boats which could take the
place of the aids or messengers of a general, coupled with the fact
that ships cannot stand still, as divisions of men do, waiting orders,
but that they must have steerage-way, precludes the idea of putting an
admiral of a fleet under way in a light vessel. By so doing he becomes
simply a spectator; whereas by being in the most powerful ship of the
fleet he retains the utmost weight possible after action is once
engaged, and, if this ship be in the reserve, the admiral keeps to the
latest possible moment the power of commander-in-chief in his own
hands. "Half a loaf is better than no bread;" if the admiral cannot,
from the conditions of sea warfare, occupy the calmly watchful
position of his brother on shore, let there be secured for him as much
as may be. The practice of Farragut after New Orleans and Vicksburg,
that is to say, in the latter part of his career, when it may be
believed experience had determined his views, was to lead in person.
It is known that he very reluctantly, at the solicitation of various
officers, yielded his convictions in this matter at Mobile so far as
to take the second place, and afterward freely expressed his regrets
for having done so. It may, however, be argued that the character of
all the actions in which Farragut commanded had a peculiarity,
differentiating them from battles in the strict sense of the word. At
New Orleans, at Vicksburg, at Port Hudson, and at Mobile, the task was
not to engage, but to pass fortifications which the fleet confessedly
could not stand up to; and the passage was to be made under conditions
mainly of pilotage upon ground as to which, unlike Nelson, he had good
knowledge. There was thus imposed upon the commander-in-chief the duty
of leadership in the literal, as well as the military, sense of the
term. So leading, he not only pointed out to the fleet the safe road,
but, drawing continually ahead of the smoke, was better able to see
and judge the path ahead, and to assume the responsibility of a course
which he may have prescribed and intended throughout, but from which a
subordinate might shrink. It has not perhaps been commonly noted, that
at Mobile the leaders, not only of one but of both columns, at the
critical point of the road hesitated and doubted as to the admiral's
purpose; not that they had not received it clearly, but because
circumstances seemed to th