eer, and Surgeon Thomas
Hewson Bache as Medical Director. To these were afterward added
Colonel John Wilson Shaffer as Chief Quartermaster, Colonel John
W. Turner as Chief Commissary, and Captain George A. Kensel as
Acting Assistant Inspector-General and Chief of Artillery.

By the end of March all the troops destined for the expedition had
landed at Ship Island, with the exception of the 13th Connecticut,
15th Maine, 7th and 8th Vermont regiments, 1st Vermont and 2d
Massachusetts batteries. Within the next fortnight all these troops
joined the force except the 2d Massachusetts battery, which being
detained more than seven weeks at Fortress Monroe, and being nearly
five weeks at sea, did not reach New Orleans until the 21st of May.
Meanwhile, of the six Maine batteries, all except the 1st had been
diverted to other fields of service.

While awaiting at Ship Island the completion of the preparations
of the navy for the final attempt on the river forts, Butler
proceeded to organize his command and to discipline and drill the
troops composing it. Many of these were entirely without instruction
in any of the details of service. On the 22d of March, he divided
his forces into three brigades of five or six regiments each, attaching
to each brigade one or more batteries of artillery and a troop of
cavalry. These brigades were commanded by Brigadier-Generals John W.
Phelps and Thomas Williams, and Colonel George F. Shepley of the 12th
Maine. When finally assembled the whole force reported about 13,500
officers and men for duty, and from that moment its strength was
destined to undergo a steady diminution by the natural attrition of
service, augmented, in this case, by climatic influences.

The fleet under Farragut consisted of seventeen vessels, mounting
154 guns. Four were screw-sloops, one a side-wheel steamer, three
screw corvettes, and nine screw gunboats. Each of the gunboats
carried one 11-inch smooth-bore gun, and one 30-pounder rifle; but
neither of these could be used to fire at an enemy directly ahead,
and, in the operations awaiting the fleet, it is within bounds to
say that not more than one gun in four could be brought to bear at
any given moment. With this fleet were twenty mortar-boats, under
Porter, each carrying one 13-inch mortar, and six gunboats, assigned
for the service of the mortar-boats and armed like the gunboats of
the river fleet. Farragut, with the _Hartford_, had reached Ship
Island on