Itasca clear. Then Caldwell, with splendid audacity and skill,
steamed up through the narrow gap, turned round, put on the
Itasca's utmost speed, and, with the current in his favor,
charged full tilt against the chains that still held fast. For
one breathless moment the little Itasca seemed lost. Her bows
rose clear out, as, quivering from stem to stern, she was
suddenly brought up short from top speed to nothing. But, in
another fateful minute, with a rending crash, the two nearest
schooners gave way and swept back like a gate, while the Itasca
herself shot clear and came down in triumph to the fleet.

The passage was made on the twenty-fourth, in line-ahead (that
is, one after another) because Farragut found the opening
narrower than he thought it should be for two columns abreast, at
night, under fire, and against the spring current. Owing to the
configuration of the channel the starboard column had to weigh
first, which gave the lead to the 500-ton gunboat Cayuga. This
was the one weak point, because the leading vessel, drawing most
fire, should have been the strongest. The fault was Farragut's;
for his heart got the better of his head when it came to placing
Captain Theodorus Bailey, his dauntless second-in-command, on
board a vessel fit to lead the starboard column. He could not
bear to obscure any captain's chances of distinction by putting
another captain over him. So Bailey was sent to the best vessel
commanded by a lieutenant.

The Cayuga's navigating officer, finding that the guns of the
forts were all trained on midstream, edged in towards Fort St.
Philip. His masts were shot to pieces, but his hull drew clear
without great damage. "Then," he says, "I looked back for some of