It appears from this account, supported by the general order issued immediately after it and given a few pages further on, that Farragut had definitely determined not to await the reduction of the forts, because the bombardment so far did not indicate any probability of effectual results. It was his deliberate opinion that the loss of time and the waste of effort were entailing greater risks than would be caused by cutting adrift from his base and severing his own communications in order to strike at those of the enemy. It is commonly true that in the effort to cut the communications of an opponent one runs the risk of exposing his own; but in this case the attacking force was one pre-eminently qualified to control the one great medium of communication throughout that region--that is, the water. Also, although in surrendering the river Farragut gave up the great line of travel, he kept in view that the bayou system offered an alternative, doubtless greatly inferior, but which, nevertheless, would serve to plant above the forts, under the protection of the navy, such troops as should be deemed necessary; and that the combined efforts of army and navy could then maintain a sufficient flow of supplies until the forts fell from isolation. Finally, a fleet is not so much an army as a collection of floating fortresses, garrisoned, provisioned, and mobile. It carries its communications in its hulls, and is not in such daily dependence upon external sources as is the sister service.