fight between one of his reconnoitering gunboats, the
_Carondelet_, and the _Arkansas_, an ironclad Confederate ram that
would have been very dangerous indeed if her miserable engines had
been able to give her any speed. She was beating the _Carondelet_,
but getting her smoke-stack so badly holed that her speed dropped
down to one knot, which scarcely gave her steerage way and made
her unable to ram. Firing hard she ran the gauntlet of both fleets
and took refuge under the Vicksburg bluffs, whence she might run
out and ram the Union vessels below. Farragut therefore ran down
himself, hoping to smash her by successive broadsides in passing.
But the difficulties of the passage wasted the daylight, so that
he had to run by at night. She therefore survived his attack, and
went downstream to join the Confederates against Baton Rouge. But
her engines gave way before she got there; and she had to be blown
up.

Farragut was back at New Orleans before the end of July. On the
fifth of August the Confederates made their attack on Baton Rouge;
but were beaten back by the Union garrison aided by three of Farragut's
gunboats and two larger vessels from Davis's command. The losses
were not very severe on either side; but the Union lost a leader
of really magnificent promise in its commanding general, Thomas
Williams, a great-hearted, cool-headed man and most accomplished
officer. The garrison of Baton Rouge, being too small and sickly
and exposed, was withdrawn to New Orleans a few days later.

Then Farragut at last returned to the Gulf blockade. Davis went back
up the river, where he was succeeded by D. D. Porter in October.
And the Confederates, warned of what was coming, made Port Hudson
and Vicksburg as strong as they could. Vicksburg was now the only
point they held on the Mississippi where there were rails on both
sides; and the Red River, flowing in from the West between Vicksburg
and Port Hudson, was the only good line of communication connecting
them with Texas, whence so much of their meat was obtained.

For three months Farragut directed the Gulf blockade from Pensacola,
where, on the day of his arrival, the twentieth of August, he was the
first American to hoist an admiral's flag. The rank of rear-admiral
in the United States Navy had been created on the previous sixteenth
of July; and Farragut was the senior of the first three officers
upon whom it was conferred.

Farragut became the ranking admiral just when the Un