the schooners commanded by foster brother, commander david dixon porter were towed into position on april 18 to begin bombarding the forts. over the next six days and nights they lobbed thousands of shells into damage but knocking out a few of the guns. ferigate decided to run his ships past the forts in the predawn darkness of april 24. this was not a popular decision among his captains who had in the words of one of them, little or no feeling of success. for his part, though, he wrote to his wife success is the only thing listened to in this war. and i know i must sink or swim by that rule. as to being prepared for defeat i certainly am not. any man who is prepared for defeat would be half defeated before he commenced. on april 22, ferigate called for a meeting of his captains to plan the attack. in military annals it was preverbial that counsels of war never fight but this one proved to be an exception. after he outlined his plans for running past the forts in the darkness he invited the response of his captains as one of them wrote, the prevailing opinions seem to be adverse to making

so he asked to take a leave of absence and instead secretary of the navy wells put david dixon porter in command of the fleet that attacked ft. fisher. his first choice for that was farragut and if his health hadn't broken down, he would have been in command of that attack too. >> a couple more calls for james mcpherson. go ahead. >> caller: if the city of new orleans was so important to the confedera confederacy, why wasn't there an attempt to recapture it? >> the confederates did plan several times to attack and recapture new orleans but the union had a fairly large army there. it was called the army of the gulf. first under benjamin butler but then from december 1862 onward who took command in the army in the campaign that captured port hudson north of baton rouge. while the confederates planned a couple of different campaigns to recapture new orleans, they were never strong enough or to put it alternatively, the union force there is were always too strong for that effort to succeed. the attack on baton rouge in august of 162, i alluded to in my talk, when the arkansas moved down t