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Updated: June 12, 2025
The adoption of armor meant sacrifice of armament, and a departure from Farragut's well-tried maxim, "The best protection against the enemy's fire is a well-sustained fire from your own guns." Thus the British Dreadnought of 1872 gave 35% of its displacement to armor and only 5% to armament. Invulnerability was secured at the expense of offensive power.
His one weakness as a leader was his generous inclination to give subordinates the chance of distinguishing themselves when they could have done more useful service in a less conspicuous position. Farragut's base at Ship Island was about a hundred miles east from the Confederate Forts Jackson and St. Philip. These forts guarded the entrance to the Mississippi.
There were others in the war whose deeds brought glory to themselves and to the navy Lieutenant William B. Cushing, who destroyed the Confederate ram Albemarle in Plymouth harbor, a deed comparable with the burning of the Philadelphia early in the century; David Dixon Porter, whose work on the Mississippi was second only to Farragut's, who four times received the thanks of Congress, and who, in the end, became admiral of the navy; Charles Stuart Boggs, who, in the sloop-of-war Varuna, sank five Confederate vessels in the river below New Orleans, before he was himself sunk but none of them, and, indeed, none of those whose exploits we have given, measured up to the stature of Farragut, one of the greatest commanders of all time, and, all things considered, the very greatest in the history of America.
The awful fate of the Tecumseh and the sight of a number of objects in the channel ahead, which seemed to be torpedoes, caused him to hesitate. He stopped his ship, and then backed water, making sternway to the Hartford, so as to stop her also. It was the crisis of the fight and the crisis of Farragut's career. The column was halted in a narrow channel, right under the fire of the forts.
Bartholomew Diggins, who was captain of Farragut's barge, then hoisted the Admiral's flag on a mast planted near the pedestal, the drums beat four ruffles, the trumpets sounded four flourishes, the Marine Band played a march, and an Admiral's salute of seventeen guns was fired from a naval battery, the troops presenting arms at the first gun and coming to a "carry" at the last.
Had circumstances delayed or prevented Grant's advance by the west bank of the Mississippi had he, for instance, been enabled by one of the abortive bayou expeditions to penetrate north of Vicksburg Farragut's action would have been no more sound nor bold, but its merits would have been far more perceptible to the common eye.
Halleck declared himself unable to respond to Farragut's urgent appeal for help. "I cannot," he said, when urged by Stanton; "I am sending reinforcements to General Curtis, in Arkansas, and to General Buell, in Tennessee and Kentucky." Not only this, but he was being called upon by Lincoln himself for 25,000 troops to reinforce the Army of the Potomac before Richmond.
The duty, though most important with war actually existing, was delicate and trying, and far from consonant to Farragut's active, enterprising character. More suitable employment was, however, fast approaching. The necessity of controlling the Mississippi valley had been early realized by the United States Government.
In complete sympathy with Southern rights, he disapproved of Secession as a movement fomented by hotheads on both sides, but he declared for it when his State so decided. He died at his home in Baton Rouge in November, 1861, before the arrival of Farragut's fleet.
When they were in the presence of those to whom they knew they could speak freely, they sneered at the efforts made by their superiors to belittle the Union victories, and laughed to scorn Mayor Monroe and the "city fathers" for the attitude they had seen fit to assume while Farragut's powerful fleet held the Crescent city under its guns.
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