veteran. At no time during the passage of the forts and the desperate
fighting with the Confederate flotilla above did he display the first
evidence of nervousness or lack of self-possession.

[Illustration: IRONCLADS ON THE MISSISSIPPI.]

The next engagement in which Lieutenant Dewey took part was the attempt
by Farragut to pass the battery of nineteen guns, mounted on the
hundred-foot high bluff of Port Hudson, on a bend of the Mississippi,
below Vicksburg. The position was the most difficult conceivable to
carry from the river, because of the plunging shots from the enormous
guns on the bluff above.

Captain Farragut had no thought of reducing these batteries, which would
have been impossible with a fleet double the strength of his, but he
wished to get his vessels past in order to blockade the river above the
bend. The attempt was made on the night of March 14, 1863, with the
_Hartford_ in the lead, and followed by the _Richmond_, _Monongahela_
and _Mississippi_, with the smaller boats. The first three boats had as
consorts the _Albatross_, _Kineo_ and _Genessee_. Captain Mahan, in "The
Gulf and Inland Waters," gives the following vivid description of this
historical incident:

"As they drew near the batteries, the lowest of which the _Hartford_ had
already passed, the enemy threw up rockets and opened their fire.
Prudence, and the fact of the best water being on the starboard hand,
led the ships to hug the east shore of the river, passing so close under
the Confederate guns that the speech of the gunners and troops could be
distinguished. Along the shore, at the foot of the bluffs, powerful
reflecting lamps, like those used on locomotives, had been placed to