one of the principal tributaries of the Yazoo. The expedition returned
after an absence of eleven days, having destroyed property to the
amount of nearly half a million.

The lull during the autumn months was marked by similar activity on
the Tennessee and Cumberland, for which a squadron of light vessels
was specially prepared. During the same period the transfer of the
flotilla from the army to the navy was made, taking effect on the 1st
of October, 1862. From this time the flotilla was officially styled
the Mississippi Squadron.

During the rest of the summer and the autumn months Admiral Farragut's
attention was mainly devoted to the seaboard of his extensive command.
The sickly season, the low stage of the river, and the condition of
his squadron, with the impossibility of obtaining decisive results
without the co-operation of the army, constrained him to this course.
Leaving a small force before New Orleans, he himself went to
Pensacola, while the other vessels of the squadron were dispersed on
blockading duty. Pursuing the general policy of the Government, point
after point was seized, and the blockade maintained by ships lying in
the harbors themselves. On the 15th of October, Farragut reported that
Galveston, Corpus Christi, and Sabine Pass, with the adjacent waters,
were in possession of the fleet, without bloodshed and almost without
firing a shot. Later on, December 4th, he wrote in a private letter
that he now held the whole coast except Mobile; but, as so often
happens in life, the congratulation had scarcely passed his lips when
a reverse followed.

On the 1st of January, 1863, a combined attack was made upon the land
and naval forces in Galveston Bay by the Confederate army and some
cottonclad steamers filled with sharpshooters, resulting in the
capture of the garrison, the destruction of the Westfield by her own
officers, and the surrender of the Harriet Lane after her captain and
executive officer had been killed at their posts. The other vessels
then abandoned the blockade. This affair, which caused great
indignation in the admiral, was followed by the capture of the sailing
vessels Morning Light and Velocity off Sabine Pass, also by cottonclad
steamers which came out on a calm day. Both Sabine Pass and Galveston
thenceforth remained in the enemy's hands. An expedition sent to
attempt the recovery of the latter failed in its object and lost the
Hatteras, an iron side-wheel steamer bought from the