utler urges
me to attack Port Hudson first, as he wishes to break up that
rendezvous before we go outside. It will take at least five thousand men
to take Port Hudson." In the same spirit he writes home, "I am still
doing nothing but waiting for the tide of events, and doing all I can to
hold what I have"; and again, a week later, "As Micawber says, I am
waiting for something to turn up, and in the mean time having patience
for the water to rise." Readiness to act, but no precipitation; waiting
for circumstances, over which he had no control, to justify acting, may
be described as his attitude at this moment.

On the 16th of December the arrival from the north of General Banks to
relieve General Butler--an event which took Farragut much by
surprise--gave him the opportunity to show at once his own ideas of the
proper military steps to be taken. Banks had brought re-enforcements
with him; and three days after his coming the admiral writes to the
Department: "I have recommended to General Banks the occupation of Baton
Rouge.... It is only twelve or fifteen miles from Port Hudson, and is
therefore a fine base of operations. He has approved of the move, and
ordered his transports to proceed directly to that point. I ordered
Commander James Alden, in the Richmond, with two gunboats, to accompany
them and cover the landing." Baton Rouge is on the southernmost of the
bluffs which in rapid succession skirt the Mississippi below Vicksburg.
With an adequate garrison it became a base of operations from which the
army could move against Port Hudson when the time came; and under its
protection the colliers and supplies necessary for the naval vessels in
the advance could safely remain.

While waiting for the new commander of the army to get fairly settled to
work and ready for the combined movement which Farragut was eager to
make, the latter was called upon to endure some sharp disappointments.
On the 1st of January, 1863, the military forces in Galveston were
attacked by Confederate troops, and the naval vessels by a number of
river steamboats barricaded with cotton to resist shells fired against
them, and loaded with riflemen. The garrison was captured, one of the
gunboats blown up by her own officers, and another surrendered after her
captain and first lieutenant had been killed on her decks. The other
vessels abandoned the harbor. The affair was not only a disaster; it was
attended with discreditable circumstances, which excit