riod, how much against his judgment were
operations conceived on such erroneous military principles and
undertaken with such inadequate force. The Department was forward to
press him on, and as early as the 17th of May sent a dispatch intimating
that he had forgotten his orders on the subject; and he was urged and
required to open up the Mississippi to Flag-officer Davis's command (the
Mississippi flotilla), then still above Memphis. This and other letters
of the same date must have been peculiarly exasperating; for they were
received early in June, when he had been up the river as far as
Vicksburg and satisfied himself that without an adequate force of troops
nothing could be accomplished. "The Department," he replies, "seems to
have considered my fleet as having escaped all injury, and that when
they arrived off New Orleans they were in condition to be pushed up the
river. This was not the case; but, the moment the vessels could be
gotten ready, the gunboats were all sent up under the command of
Commander S. P. Lee, with directions to proceed to Vicksburg, take that
place, and cut the railroad.... From all I could hear it was not
considered proper, even with pilots, to risk the ships beyond
Natchez.... By the time Commander Lee arrived at Vicksburg (May 18th) he
was satisfied that the force of the enemy was too great for him to
venture to take the town, or even to pass it. The land in the rear of
Vicksburg is about two hundred feet high, on which are placed some eight
and ten inch columbiads, which are perfectly secure from our fire.... I
determined to get the heavy ships up there if possible, which I did a
day or two after. General Williams arrived in the mean time with fifteen
hundred men, when I proposed to him, if he could carry the battery on
the hill, I would attack the town. He made a careful reconnaissance, and
returned to me in the afternoon, when I had all the (naval) commanders
assembled. He reported that it would be impossible for him to land, and
that he saw no chance of doing anything with the place so long as the
enemy were in such force, having at their command thirty thousand men
within one hour by railroad. A large majority of the commanders
concurred with him in the opinion."

Writing to his home about this council, in which, contrary to his
independent decision when below Fort Jackson, he yielded to the advice
of his captains, he said: "I did not pass Vicksburg; not because it was
too strongly fort