On the whole, however, the Confederates were plainly having the best of the contest, and Farragut came up from the Gulf to see about matters. He had himself had both good and bad fortune in the Gulf. A number of Texas ports, including Galveston and Corpus Christi, were captured, but Galveston was retaken by the Confederates, who attacked it with a combined land and marine force, the ships being cotton-clads. The Union navy had the Westfield destroyed, and the Harriet Lane captured, after both her captain and executive officer were killed. And a little later the famous Alabama appeared at night off Galveston. An armed merchant steamer was sent to inspect her, and the Alabama opened fire and sank her, escaping before the other blockading steamer could come out to assist.

So Farragut was in a state of mind to take risks, and he ran his squadron past the works at Port Hudson on the 14th of March, 1863, where nineteen heavy guns were mounted. It was a dangerous place naturally on account of the currents in the stream and the shoals. Seven vessels, including the Hartford, tried the passage. The Hartford, with the gunboat Albatross alongside, led the procession. The Monongahela, with the Kineo alongside, were next, with the Richmond and Genesee following, and the Mississippi alone in the rear.

The Hartford with her consort got past the batteries after some little trouble. The Richmond was disabled by a shot, and with her consort’s aid turned back. The Monongahela and consort both grounded, but the Monongahela passed on, while the Mississippi grounded so hard that she was fired and abandoned. It was a pretty serious affair for the government force, but the Red River was blockaded, and it was not opened for traffic until the end of the war. When two of the Ellet rams were sent down past Vicksburg to increase Farragut’s force above Port Hudson, one, the Lancaster, was sunk, and the other got through. Both were commanded by the indomitable Ellet boys.

Battle of Grand Gulf—First Position.

From a painting by Admiral Walke.

Near the end of February, while Farragut held the river between Port Hudson and Vicksburg, Porter tried to get in behind Vicksburg by the way of the Yazoo swamps once more. He took a different route from that of the first expedition, but he could not drive the tin-clads over the willows, and the Confederates cut trees across the bayous both in front of and behind his steamers until he was well-nigh lost. And at the last he found his way blocked by the hulk of the Star of the West, the steamer at which the first shot of the war was fired—the shot that turned her back when she was carrying supplies to Fort Sumter. After the Sumter event she had gone to New Orleans, was there taken forcibly by the Confederates, and ended her existence as a barrier hulk in a Yazoo bayou.

This expedition having failed, Grant determined to go down the westerly bank of the Mississippi to New Carthage, and then cross and surround Vicksburg. On the night of April 16, 1863, Porter took the following vessels down past Vicksburg to cover Grant when crossing: The flagship Benton, sixteen guns, Lieut.-commander James A. Greer, leading, and the other vessels in the following order: Lafayette, eight guns, Capt. Henry Walke; Louisville, twelve guns, Lieut.-commander Elias K. Owen; Mound City, fourteen guns, Lieut. Byron Wilson; Pittsburg, thirteen guns, Lieut. W. R. Hoel; Carondelet, eleven guns, Lieut. J. McLeod Murphy; Tuscumbia, five guns, Lieut.-commander James W. Shirk. The Lafayette carried with her, lashed to the other side of her coal barge, the ram General Price, Lieut. S. E. Woodworth, which had continued in the service after being taken from the Confederates at Memphis. After the Carondelet, between her and the Tuscumbia, came three army transports, the Silver Wave, Henry Clay, and Forest Queen, unprotected except by bales of hay and cotton round the boilers. They carried stores, but no troops.

The armed vessels were repeatedly hulled, but were in no way disabled. One transport, the Henry Clay, caught fire and sank. On the 22d of April a number of transports ran the batteries, and on the 29th, the plans having been changed somewhat, the squadron attacked the works at Grand Gulf. Here there were four of the best rifled cannon of the day, two eight-inch smooth-bores, two old thirty-twos, and some light guns—a battery of not a fourth of the power of the fleet, but it was seventy-five feet above the water, and the fleet pounded it all day and accomplished nothing. They lost eighteen killed and fifty-six wounded at that.