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piled up some pork barrels emitting clouds ofsmoke from a mud furnace underneath, and thistruly formidable craft was let loose with the cur-rent to scatter the Confederate vessels by the mereterror of her coming, — an excellent instance of themoral power of Ericsson’s memorable invention!
So far as concerned the control of the water,however, the Confederates still had the laugh ontheir side. Porter saw that it was useless to dis-pute the case without bringing a great part of hisfleet down, which was out of the question so longas the army entertained the thought of crossingthe river above Vicksburg . When the news ofthese events reached New Orleans , it seemed toAdmiral Farragut that the time had come to takehis fleet upstream and pass Port Hudson. Gen-eral Banks had reached New Orleans in Decemberwith a force intended to cooperate with the fleetin reducing this stronghold ; but he had found itnecessary first to make a campaign in the interiorof Louisiana against a troublesome Confederate force under Richard Taylor, and it was long be-fore he was ready to undertake his principal work.But Farragut felt that his ships were needed abovePort Hudson, and on the night of March 14, withseven stout vessels, he set out to pass the batteries.This time it was a fierce fight for an hour and ahalf. Four ships retreated downstream disabled,