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NAVAL ATTACK OP FORTIFICATIONS. 
clear the channel; and I do not myself see how we can support those 
boats. I am afraid they will have to go in as a sort of forlorn hope with 
their creeps and their counter-mines and their various devices for clear¬ 
ing the channel, and will have to run the gauntlet of the guns, because if, 
as is sometimes advocated, we advance our ships to support those boats, 
we bring on just what we wish to avoid. We want to get our ships 
past clear and yet we rush them into a fight, and perhaps anchor 
them under the guns of the batteries, which is just what the batteries 
want. So that I think it is quite possible that the beginning and end 
of forcing the channel may be that the small craft will try to force the 
obstruction and may be driven back, and perhaps after all the game 
may be considered not worth the candle ; but, at any rate, there will be 
fighting of some kind over these boats. The boats, of course, will try 
to get darkness or fog in their favour. Supposing the channel to be 
fairly narrow and the electric lights to be about, and the electric lights 
to be well worked and well managed, then I do not think that the 
darkness helps the boats very much ; but if the place is a foggy one, 
fog helps them a good deal, because it altogether obscures the electric 
lights and upsets the gunnery on shore. The only thing that they 
then have to fear so much is counter-attacks from boats like themselves. 
But I do not myself think that you can work both guard-boats and the 
guns, you must have one or the other. If the weather is clear I fancy 
the defence had better trust to their guns and electric lights and sink 
or disable every boat they see. If the weather is thick, cease firing 
and hunt the place over with your own guard-boats. What you want 
in order to keep those boats off, I take it, is not well defended batteries, 
not thick parapets, but a lot of little guns—quick-firing guns if you 
can get them,—but if you cannot get quick-firing guns, field guns or 
old 40-prs., or anything that will sink a boat, and that does not require 
much. 
Now, supposing the channel to be clear, the people on shore immedi¬ 
ately set to work to fill it up again, and that, I think, is where mining 
will come in. It is very easy, as you know, to run a line of counter 
mines, and it is just as easy to run a line of mechanical mines, and 
when the channel is cleared the enemy,. if he is worth much, will 
immediately stick a lot of mechanical mines down and perhaps make the 
place worse than it was before. Therefore, all these boat operations 
must be so timed as to close as daylight comes on, so that we may be 
pretty sure that the enemy are not putting down more mines. When 
once we get daylight the big ships will go in. I cannot myself see the 
least chance of big ships going into a narrow channel at night. Ships 
have gone through a channel at night. Farragut did so at New 
Orleans, and they ran past Yicksburgh, but there were no electric 
lights in those days, the gunnery on shore was not very good, the 
channel of the Mississippi was perfectly clear, and they went so slowly 
that if they got on the mud they did not stick. The best proof that 
daylight is best is, that Farragut himself, towards the close of the 
war, chose daylight to run into Mobile. Mines were just beginning 
then, and he lost one ship by a mine as it was. But we must have 
daylight to see our way through the obstructions, and we cannot 
