ggling, but nothing could be so bad as backing, collision, or
stoppage at the obstructions. In such an attack, however, as in all of
Farragut's battles, it seems eminently fitting that the commander of the
column should lead. The occasion is one for pilotage and example; and
inasmuch as the divisional commander can not control, except by example,
any ship besides the one on board which he himself is, that ship should
be the most powerful in his command. These conclusions may hereafter be
modified by conditions of submarine warfare, though even under them it
seems likely that in forcing passage into a harbor the van ship should
carry the flag of the officer commanding the leading division; but under
the circumstances of Farragut's day they may be accepted as representing
his own convictions, first formed by the careful deliberation of a man
with a genius for war, and afterward continually confirmed by his
ever-ripening experience.

Left thus unsupported by the logical results of her false position, the
Cayuga found herself exposed to an even greater danger than she had
already run from the guns of the stationary works. "Looking ahead," says
Perkins's letter, already quoted, "I saw eleven of the enemy's gunboats
coming down upon us, and it seemed as if we were 'gone' sure." The
vessels thus dimly seen in the darkness of the night were a
heterogeneous, disorganized body, concerning which, however, very
imperfect and very exaggerated particulars had reached the United States
fleet. They were freely spoken of as ironclad gunboats and ironclad
rams, and the Confederates had done all in their power to increase the
moral effect which was attendant upon these names, then new to maritime
warfare. None of them had been built with any view to war. Three only
were sea-going, with the light scantling appropriate to their calling as
vessels for freight and passenger traffic. Another had been a large
twin-screw tugboat that began her career in Boston, and thence, shortly
before the war, had been sent to the Mississippi. After the outbreak of
hostilities she had been covered with an arched roof and
three-quarter-inch iron; a nine-inch gun, capable only of firing
directly ahead, had been mounted in her bows, and, thus equipped, she
passed into notoriety as the ram Manassas. With the miserable speed of
six knots, to which, however, the current of the river gave a very
important addition, and with a protection scarcely stronger than the
bu