y."[M] Colonel Szymanski testified: "After the forts had been passed,
it was practicable for the enemy to transport his army through the
bayous and canals to New Orleans, without encountering the forts. A
portion of the enemy did come that way. I have for many years owned a
plantation fifteen miles below the city, and am very familiar with the
whole country. I have never known the river as high as it was in 1862.
Also, above English Turn (five miles below the city) there is water
communication through Lake Borgne with the Gulf of Mexico by other
bayous and canals of the same character."[N]

[Footnote L: _Official Records of the War of the Rebellion._
Series I, vol. vi, p. 583.]

[Footnote M: _Official Records of the War of the Rebellion._
Series I, vol. vi, p. 566.]

[Footnote N: Ibid., p. 578.]

It is evident, therefore, that competent military men on the spot, and
in full possession of all the facts, considered, as did Farragut, that
with the passage of the forts by the fleet the material probabilities of
success became in favor of the United States forces. The only moral
effect produced was the mutiny of the half-disciplined alien troops that
garrisoned the forts; and surely it will not be contended that any such
wild anticipation as of that prompted Farragut's movement. The officers
of the forts were trained and educated soldiers, who knew their duty and
would not be crushed into submission by adverse circumstances. They
would doubtless have replied, as did the commander of Fort Morgan two
years later, that they looked upon the United States fleet above them as
their prisoners, and they would have held out to the bitter end; but the
end was certain as soon as the fleet passed above them. They had
provisions for two months; then, if not reduced by blows, they must
yield to hunger.

Immediately after the conference with his captains, Farragut issued the
following general order, from which it appears that, while his opinion
remained unchanged as to the expediency of running by the forts, he
contemplated the possibility, though not the probability, of their being
subdued by the fire of the fleet, and reserved to himself freedom to act
accordingly by prescribing a simple signal, which would be readily
understood, and would convert the attempt to pass into a sustained and
deadly effort to conquer:

"UNITED STATES FLAG-SHIP HARTFORD,
MISSISSIPPI RIVER, _April 20, 1862_.

"The flag-officer,