When Farragut had sailed his fleet into the river, he made ready for the great fight before him. Of course, he had no iron-clads, for the _Monitor_ had just fought its great battle and no other iron-clads had been built. So he stretched iron chains up and down the sides of his ships to stop cannon balls. Then bags of coal and sand were piled round the boilers and engines to keep them safe, and nets were hung to catch flying splinters, which, in a fight at sea, are often worse than bullets. But the most interesting thing done was to the mortar boats. These were to be anchored down the stream below the forts, and limbs of trees full of green leaves were tied on their masts, so they could not be told from the trees on the river-bank. As they went up the river they looked like a green grove afloat. Now let us take a look at what the Confederates were doing. They were not asleep, you may be sure. They had built two strong forts, one on each side of the river, just where it made a sharp bend. One of these was named Fort Jackson and the other Fort St. Philip. There were more than a hundred cannon in these forts, but most of them were small ones. They had also stretched iron cables across the river, with rafts and small vessels to hold them up. These were to stop the fleet from going up the river, and to hold it fast while the forts could pour shot and shell into it. They had also many steamboats with cannon on them. One of these, the _Louisiana_, was covered with iron. Another was a ram, called the _Manassas_. This had a sharp iron beak, to ram and sink other vessels. And there were great coal barges, filled with fat pine knots. These were meant for fire-ships. You will learn farther on how these were to be used. You may see from this that Farragut had some hard work before him. Even if he got past the chains and the forts, all his ships might be set on fire by the fire-ships. But the bold captain was not one of the kind that mind things like that. Now let us go on to the story of the terrible river fight, which has long been one of the most famous battles of the war. Porter's mortar boats were anchored under the trees on the river-bank, two miles below the forts. With their green-clad masts they looked like trees themselves. At ten o'clock in the morning of April 18, 1862, the first mortar sent its big shell whizzing through the air. And for six days this was kept up, each of the mortars booming out once every ten minutes. That made one shot for every half-minute. Two days after the mortars began, a bold thing was done. The gunboat _Itasca_ set out in the darkness of the night and managed to get between the shore and the chain. Then it ran up stream above the chain till it got a good headway. It now turned round and came down at full speed before the strong current.