In fact, Farragut’s bold cruise up the river was practically fruitless because the Administration did not follow it up. This is not said to criticise the Administration. It is the common belief of the American people that no man in the nation could have done better than Abraham Lincoln. But after the batteries were passed at Vicksburg, the Union forces made what Mahan calls a recoil. Vicksburg was more strongly fortified than ever, and so was Port Hudson, while Grand Gulf became a point of no small importance to the Confederates. [Illustration: The _Carondelet_ after Passing Vicksburg. _From a photograph._] While the combined squadrons of Farragut and Davis lay above Vicksburg a Confederate ram called the _Arkansas_, Capt. Isaac N. Brown, was reported as about ready for action at a shipyard up the Yazoo River. “Little apprehension was felt in the Union fleet,” but Captain Walke, with the _Carondelet_, the _Taylor_, and Ellet’s ram, _Queen of the West_, went up for a look at her on July 15, 1862. Very unexpectedly they met her coming down for a look at the Union forces. The _Taylor_ was in the lead, and she immediately turned back for the support of the _Carondelet_. The _Carondelet_ turned back for the support of the ram, and the ram turned back for the support of the squadron in the Mississippi. Being very swift, the ram ran soon out of sight. The gunboats now had their unarmored sterns toward the Confederate ship, and for an hour she spanked them soundly, as they richly deserved. The _Carondelet_ at this time actually threw 150 pounds of metal from rifled guns in her bow ports to the 106 that the _Arkansas_ threw from her bow ports, while her broadside fire was 170 pounds to 165 on the _Arkansas_. And yet, although supposably supported by the _Taylor_, she ran away, hugging the left bank, where the _Arkansas_, of thirteen feet draft, could not ram her, and there she eventually grounded, leaving the triumphant _Arkansas_ to chase the _Taylor_ and surprise the government squadrons. Fortunate it was that the Confederates at the Yazoo shipyards were poor mechanics. When the _Arkansas_ reached the Union squadrons her machinery was in such bad order that she was making barely one knot an hour. The captured ram _General Bragg_ had steam up, but her captain waited for orders, and so missed the chance of a lifetime, as Farragut remarked at the time. Boldly steering through the unprepared squadron, the _Arkansas_ fired right and left and took a position under the Vicksburg batteries. Her crew numbered forty-one. The two Union flag officers were greatly mortified because they were caught napping, and Farragut, to retrieve himself, took his squadron down past the batteries that night, hoping to destroy the _Arkansas_ as he passed, but he failed because she was safely moored. Two days later Farragut and part of his ships went to New Orleans, and the handful of Union troops that had been on the point opposite Vicksburg went to Baton Rouge.