added to her velocity." In
conclusion he adds: "I arrived in New Orleans with five or six days'
provisions and one anchor, and am now trying to procure others. As soon
as provisions and anchors are obtained we will take our departure for up
the river, and endeavor to carry out, as far as practicable, the orders
conveyed in your different dispatches." Writing home, he expressed
himself more freely and unmistakably: "They will keep us in this river
until the vessels break down and all the little reputation we have made
has evaporated. The Government appears to think that we can do anything.
They expect me to navigate the Mississippi nine hundred miles in the
face of batteries, ironclad rams, etc., and yet with all the ironclad
vessels they have North they could not get to Norfolk or Richmond....
Well, I will do my duty to the best of my ability, and let the rest take
care of itself.... They can not deprive me and my officers of the
historical fact that we took New Orleans. Now they expect
impossibilities."

Enough has been quoted to show that Farragut was in no way responsible
for, nor approved of, the ill-timed tenacity with which the Government
held to its original plan, when the conditions had turned out entirely
different from those at first expected. The Secretary of the Navy at a
later date endeavored to throw the blame of failure entirely upon the
War Department, which was either unwilling or unable to support the
naval movement with adequate troops. It is not necessary, in a life of
the admiral, to attempt to decide upon the degree of remissness, if any,
shown by the military service, nor upon whose shoulders it falls. It is
sufficient to point out that the Navy Department required of Farragut to
go up to meet the Western flotilla when it was near nine hundred miles
from the mouth of the Mississippi, for no better reason, apparently,
than that it had determined upon the junction at a time when it supposed
it would be effected much lower down. In so doing it left nothing to the
judgment of the officer commanding on the spot. "I think," said Farragut
quietly, "that more should have been left to my discretion; but I hope
for the best, and pray God to protect our poor sailors from harm." His
own opinion was that Mobile should be the next point attacked. The
difficulties there were not so great as those encountered at the
Mississippi forts; and his success at the latter might not improbably
have considerable moral eff