Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 12, 2025
It is unnecessary to enter into any examination of Farragut's course during this period, although the affairs with which he had to deal became at times both critical and delicate. It will be sufficient to say that the Navy Department, after receiving his reports, approved his conduct as having been prudent and yet marked by a proper spirit.
Philip by Farragut's fleet, the annihilation of the Confederate gunboats and the capture of New Orleans; and these "slight reverses" were almost immediately followed by the defeat of the gunboats that had been building at Memphis, and of which the Confederates expected such great things. But the rank and file of the army were not so easily deceived.
Rejoining Farragut's squadron, Perkins saw other gallant and varied service in the Cayuga until November, 1862, when he was transferred to the Pensacola, and the following month commissioned lieutenant-commander, a new grade created by Congress to correspond with that of major in the army.
Here we joined the United States steamship Hartford, Admiral Farragut's flagship, and the next day set sail for our destined port, if a coral reef surrounded by a raging surf can be called a port. About the same time a party of French observers under Monsieur Janssen, of the Paris Academy of Sciences, left Panama in the Eclaireur. It was an ocean race of four thousand miles due west.
The golden opportunity of the fall of 1861 never returns. The Confederate operations west of the Rio Grande were only a miserable and ridiculous farce. Valois, leaving failure behind him, learns on nearing the Louisiana line, that the proud Pelican flag floats no longer over the Crescent City. It lies now helpless under the guns of fearless Farragut's fleet.
Farragut's thoughtful, not to say philosophical, turn of mind was shown in his recorded reflections upon the difference between the conduct of the man-of-war's men and the merchant seamen, which he justly attributed not to inherent difference of natural courage, but to the habit of arms and of contemplating danger under a particular form.
Grant was equally annoyed by this absurd delay, which was caused by the eccentric, and therefore entirely wasteful, Red River Expedition of '64, an expedition we shall ignore otherwise than by pointing out, in this and the succeeding chapters, that it not only postponed the overdue attack on Mobile but spoilt Sherman's grand strategy as well as Farragut's and Grant's. Banks commanded it.
Of the 16 capital ships engaged, three were sunk, one had to be beached, and some of the others were hardly ready for continuing the action next day. There is some military support for the opinion that if, on the 18th or at some more suitable time, the fleet had acted in the spirit of Farragut's "Damn the torpedoes!
An army to seize and hold strategic points ashore was absolutely indispensable. Then, and only then, Farragut's long line of communication with his base at New Orleans would be safe, and the land in which the Mississippi was the principal highway could itself be conquered.
Philip and Jackson were plainly visible to the men on board, while these, in their turn, were seen from the forts. Here the troops received the news of Farragut's arrival at New Orleans.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking