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moved from the place in which she had anchored after coming down from New Orleans a day or two before.
Two steamers near her seemed to be her tenders.
Before the Miami got ready, the mortar fleet started down the river to the passes.
The Miami was slow, besides steering very wildly.
When I got to the head of the passes, that is, where the Southwest Pass, the South Pass, and Pass a l'outre, to the easterly, form several means of passage from the river to the Gulf, all my troops and steamers, under the personal command of General Williams, went up to the rear of Fort St. Philip, and I made my headquarters on Sable Island.
I was delayed twenty-four hours by the Miami running aground, and I was much in need of light draft steamers, for which I had made requisition on the quartermaster-general on the 24th of February.
That requisition had never been answered, and, in fact, I never received any assistance from that department, by its sending me anything, from the 24th of February to the 8th of May.
I was enabled at last to disembark my troops and form a column of yawl boats in which they were conveyed up the Maumeel Canal as far as we could go. Then we left the boats and waded for miles up the levee near the quarantine station, for the purpose of attacking Fort St. Philip in the rear.
To get there I myself waded in the water above my hips for nearly two miles--which was not unsafe but unpleasant.
Here, Captain Smith, of the naval vessel Mississippi, which had been detained by Farragut to hold that station, kindly conveyed a detachment of my soldiers across the river, where we established ourselves by entrenchment across the levee.
To understand the purpose of this movement, it should be told that the only way to get up the river by land on either side was to go up its bank close to the water's edge.
Here frequently there was no passable ground more than sufficient for a carriage road.
So that when I had taken possession of the west bank of the river there was no earthly hope that the troops in the forts could get to New Orleans.
On April 27, the majority of the garrison of Fort Jackson mutinied against their officers, either spiked the field-pieces or turned them against their officers, and deserted and came up five
A. M. Thayer and Co. 1892.
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