Going up the river toward Port Hudson the course is nearly north; then a bend is reached of over ninety degrees, so that after making the turn the course for some distance is west-southwest. The town is on the east side, just below the bend. From it the batteries extended a mile and a half down the river, upon bluffs from eighty to a hundred feet high. Between the two reaches, and opposite to the town, is a low, narrow point, from which a very dangerous shoal makes out. The channel runs close to the east bank.
The squadron remained at its anchorage above Profit's Island but a few hours, waiting for the cover of night. Shortly before 10 p. m. it got under way, ranged as follows: Hartford, Richmond, Monongahela, each with her consort lashed alongside, the Mississippi bringing up the rear. Just as they were fairly starting a steamer was seen approaching from down the river, flaring lights and making the loud puffing of the high-pressure engines. The flag-ship slowed down, and the new arrival came alongside with a message from the general that the army was then encamped about five miles in rear of the Port Hudson batteries. Irritated by a delay, which served only to attract the enemy's attention and to assure himself that no diversion was to be expected from the army, the admiral was heard to mutter: "He had as well be in New Orleans or at Baton Rouge for all the good he is doing us." At the same moment the east bank of the river was lit up, and on the opposite point huge bonfires kindled to illumine the scene—a wise precaution, the neglect of which by the enemy had much favored the fleet in the passage of the lower forts.
The ships now moved on steadily, but very slowly, owing to the force of the current. At 11 p. m. the Hartford had already passed the lower batteries, when the enemy threw up rockets and opened fire. This was returned not only by the advancing ships, but also by the ironclad Essex and the mortar schooners, which had been stationed to cover the passage. The night was calm and damp, and the cannonade soon raised a dense smoke which settled heavily upon the water, covering the ships from sight, but embarrassing their movements far more than it disconcerted the aim of their opponents. The flag-ship, being in the advance, drew somewhat ahead of the smoke, although even she had from time to time to stop firing to enable the pilot to see. Her movements were also facilitated by placing the pilot in the mizzen-top, with a speaking tube to communicate with the deck, a precaution to which the admiral largely attributed her safety; but the vessels in the rear found it impossible to see, and groped blindly, feeling their way after their leader. Had the course to be traversed been a straight line, the difficulty would have been much less; but to make so sharp a turn as awaited them at the bend was no easy feat under the prevailing obscurity. As the Hartford attempted it the downward current caught her on the port bow, swung her head round toward the batteries, and nearly threw her on shore, her stem touching for a moment. The combined powers of her own engine and that of the Albatross, her consort, were then brought into play as an oarsman uses the oars to turn his boat, pulling one and backing the other; that of the Albatross was backed, while that of the Hartford went ahead strong. In this way their heads were pointed up stream and they went through clear; but they were the only ones who effected the passage.
The Richmond, which followed next, had reached the bend and was about to turn when a plunging shot upset both safety valves, allowing so much steam to escape that the engines could not be efficiently worked. Thinking that the Genesee, her companion, could not alone pull the two vessels by, the captain of the Richmond turned and carried them both down stream. The Monongahela, third in the line, ran on the shoal opposite to the town with so much violence that the gunboat Kineo, alongside of her, tore loose from the fastenings. The Monongahela remained aground for twenty-five minutes, when the Kineo succeeded in getting her off. She then attempted again to run the batteries, but when near the turn a crank-pin became heated and the engines stopped. Being now unmanageable, she drifted down stream and out of action, having lost six killed and twenty-one wounded. The Mississippi also struck on the shoal, close to the bend, when she was going very fast, and defied every effort to get her off. After working for thirty-five minutes, finding that the other ships had passed off the scene leaving her unsupported, while three batteries had her range and were hulling her constantly, the commanding officer ordered her to be set on fire. The three boats that alone were left capable of floating were used to land the crew on the west bank; the sick and wounded being first taken, the captain and first lieutenant leaving the ship last. She remained aground and in flames until three in the morning, when she floated and drifted down stream, fortunately going clear of the vessels below. At half-past five she blew up. Out of a ship's company of two hundred and ninety-seven, sixty-four were found missing, of whom twenty-five were believed to be killed.
In his dispatch to the Navy Department, written the second day after this affair, the admiral lamented that he had again to report disaster to a part of his command. A disaster indeed it was, but not of the kind which he had lately had to communicate, and to which the word "again" seems to refer; for there was no discredit attending it. The stern resolution with which the Hartford herself was handled, and the steadiness with which she and her companion were wrenched out of the very jaws of destruction, offer a consummate example of professional conduct; while the fate of the Mississippi, deplorable as the loss of so fine a vessel was, gave rise to a display of that coolness and efficiency in the face of imminent danger which illustrate the annals of a navy as nobly as do the most successful deeds of heroism.
Nevertheless, it must be admitted that the failure to pass the batteries, by nearly three fourths of the force which the admiral had thought necessary to take with him, constituted a very serious check to the operations he had projected. From Port Hudson to Vicksburg is over two hundred miles; and while the two ships he still had were sufficient to blockade the mouth of the Red River—the chief line by which supplies reached the enemy—they could not maintain over the entire district the watchfulness necessary wholly to intercept communication between the two shores. Neither could they for the briefest period abandon their station at the river's mouth, without affording an opportunity to the enemy; who was rendered vigilant by urgent necessities which forced him to seize every opening for the passage of stores. From the repulse of five out of the seven ships detailed for the control of the river, it resulted that the enemy's communications, on a line absolutely vital to him, and consequently of supreme strategic importance, were impeded only, not broken off. It becomes, therefore, of interest to inquire whether this failure can be attributed to any oversight or mistake in the arrangements made for forcing the passage—in the tactical dispositions, to use the technical phrase. In this, as in every case, those dispositions should be conformed to the object to be attained and to the obstacles which must be overcome.
The purpose which the admiral had in view was clearly stated in the general order issued to his captains: "The captains will bear in mind that the object is to run the batteries at the least possible damage to our ships, and thereby secure an efficient force above, for the purpose of rendering such assistance as may be required of us to the army at Vicksburg, or, if not required there, to our army at Baton Rouge." Such was the object, and the obstacles to its accomplishment were twofold, viz., those arising from the difficulties of the navigation, and those due to the preparations of the enemy. To overcome them, it was necessary to provide a sufficient force, and to dispose that force in the manner best calculated to insure the passage, as well as to entail the least exposure. Exposure is measured by three principal elements—the size and character of the target offered, the length of time under fire, and the power of the enemy's guns; and the last, again, depends not merely upon the number and size of the guns, but also upon the fire with which they are met. In this same general order Farragut enunciated, in terse and vigorous terms, a leading principle in warfare, which there is now a tendency to undervalue, in the struggle to multiply gun-shields and other defensive contrivances. It is with no wish to disparage defensive preparations, nor to ignore that ships must be able to bear as well as to give hard knocks, that this phrase of Farragut's, embodying the experience of war in all ages and the practice of all great captains, is here recalled, "The best protection against the enemy's fire is a well-directed fire from our own guns."
The disposition adopted for the squadron was chiefly a development of this simple principle, combined with an attempt to form the ships in such an order as should offer the least favorable target to the enemy. A double column of ships, if it presents to the enemy a battery formidable enough to subdue his fire, in whole or in part, shows a smaller target than the same number disposed in a single column; because the latter order will be twice as long in passing, with no greater display of gun-power at a particular point. The closer the two columns are together, the less chance there is that a shot flying over the nearer ship will strike one abreast her; therefore, when the two are lashed side by side this risk is least, and at the same time the near ship protects the off one from the projectile that strikes herself. These remarks would apply, in degree, if all the ships of the squadron had had powerful batteries; the limitation being only that enough guns must be in the near or fighting column to support each other, and to prevent several of the enemy's batteries being concentrated on a single ship—a contingency dependent upon the length of the line of hostile guns to be passed. But when, as at Port Hudson, several of the vessels are of feeble gun-power, so that their presence in the fighting column would not re-enforce its fire to an extent at all proportionate to the risk to themselves, the arrangement there adopted is doubly efficacious.
The dispositions to meet and overcome the difficulties imposed by the enemy's guns amounted, therefore, to concentrating upon them the batteries of the heavy ships, supporting each other, and at the same time covering the passage of a second column of gunboats, which was placed in the most favorable position for escaping injury. In principle the plan was the same as at New Orleans—the heavy ships fought while the light were to slip by; but in application, the circumstances at the lower forts would not allow one battery to be masked as at Port Hudson, because there were enemy's works on both sides. For meeting the difficulties of the navigation on this occasion, Farragut seems not to have been pleased with the arrangement adopted. "With the exception of the assistance they might have rendered the ships, if disabled, they were a great disadvantage," he wrote. The exception, however, is weighty; and, taken in connection with his subsequent use of the same order at Mobile, it may be presumed the sentence quoted was written under the momentary recollection of some inconvenience attending this passage. Certainly, with single-screw vessels, as were all his fleet, it was an inestimable advantage, in intricate navigation or in close quarters, to have the help of a second screw working in opposition to the first, to throw the ship round at a critical instant. In the supreme moment of his military life, at Mobile, he had reason to appreciate this advantage, which he there, as here, most intelligently used.