This was in April, 1861; but it was not till January, 1862, that he was appointed to command the New Orleans expedition and the Western gulf blockading squadron. He sailed from Hampton Roads February 2, in the flag-ship _Hartford_. Some sentences from the sailing-orders addressed to him by the Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles, are significant and suggestive. "As you have expressed yourself perfectly satisfied with the force given to you, and as many more powerful vessels will be added before you can commence operations, the department and the country require of you success.... There are other operations of minor importance which will commend themselves to your judgment and skill, but which must not be allowed to interfere with the great object in view, the certain capture of the city of New Orleans.... Destroy the armed barriers which these deluded people have raised up against the power of the United States Government, and shoot down those who war against the Union; but cultivate with cordiality the first returning reason which is sure to follow your success." In a single respect Farragut was not satisfied with his fleet. He had no faith in the mortars, and would rather have gone without them; but they had been ordered before he was consulted, and were under the command of his personal friend Porter. Perhaps his distrust of them arose from his knowledge that, in 1815, a British fleet had unavailingly thrown a thousand shells into a fort at this very turn of the river where he was now to make the attack. The mortar schooners were to rendezvous first at Key West, and sail then for Ship Island, off Lake Borgne, where the transports were to take the troops and the war-vessels were to meet as soon as possible. A considerable portion of March was gone before enough of the fleet had reached the rendezvous to begin operations. The first difficulty was to get into the river. The Eads jetties did not then exist, and the shifting mud-banks made constant soundings necessary for large vessels. The mortar schooners went in by Pass à l'Outre without difficulty; but to get the _Brooklyn_, _Mississippi_, and _Pensacola_ over the bar at Southwest Pass required immense labor, and occupied two or three weeks. The _Mississippi_ was dragged over with her keel ploughing a furrow a foot deep in the river bottom, and the _Colorado_ could not be taken over at all. [Illustration: INGENIOUS METHOD OF DISGUISING COMMANDER PORTER'S MORTAR FLOTILLA.]