It was not until the 28th that everything was settled by the surrender of the forts to Commander Porter, who had remained below with his mortar flotilla, which had done such good service. Mention should be made of the very improper action of the British ship _Mersey_, which, following Farragut’s fleet up the river, anchored near the _Hartford_, where the men aboard sang Confederate songs and acted otherwise in a way so offensive that Farragut was obliged to call the English captain’s attention to their conduct. Farragut should, in fact, have ordered the ship out of the river. The first step only had been taken. There were yet to come great and ever-memorable battles before Port Hudson and Vicksburg; fights with ironclads, and expeditions up the rivers by squadrons of improvised men-of-war under Flag Officers Davis and Foote, both of gallant memory. Finally the command of the navy, extending over the whole of the vast river system of which the Mississippi was the main artery, fell gradually to Porter, who on the fall of Vicksburg, in which his fleet played so great a part, was made a rear-admiral. His command was now extended down to New Orleans. He had over 150 vessels under his flag, and on August 7, 1863, he was able to write from New Orleans that the “river is entirely free from guerrillas, and merchant vessels can travel it without danger.” But there was plenty of fighting yet for the navy in the affluents of the Mississippi, and the Red River expedition of March 12 to May 16, 1864, in aid of General Banks’s ill-advised campaign, came near to causing the destruction of the most important part of Porter’s fleet through the falling of the water. The building of the famous dam by Colonel Bailey of the volunteers, and the successful passage thereby of the fleet into deeper water, is one of the great dramatic events of the war. While such things were happening on the western rivers, scores of actions were taking place in Atlantic waters. The siege of Charleston was a continuous operation and was to remain such to the end of the war; the ironclad had come into extended use; the Confederate ironclad _Atlanta_ had been captured in Wassaw Sound in Georgia by the monitor _Weehawken_, under Captain John Rodgers. There were in all, during the year 1863, 145 engagements by the navy, great and small. * * * * *