at Vicksburg, Farragut ordered Porter to bring the flotilla back to the Mississippi so that it might support him in operations against Vicksburg as it had done in his advance on New Orleans. A. Houghton accompanied the flotilla as it returned to the Mississippi and supported it late in June during its bombardment of Vicksburg's batteries while Farragut's ships ran the gauntlet through the fire of the Southern guns. Then, after descending the river to replenish her supply of ammunition, she left New Orleans on 3 July, towed back upstream by the merchant steamer Empire Parish. On the 6th, while the two ships were passing Grand Gulf, Mississippi, Southern batteries fired upon them and scored several hits, wounding two men. However, A. Houghton immediately returned the fire to good effect. In later describing the action, Lieutenant George Henry Preble – who commanded Union gunboat which heard the firing and steamed downstream in the hope of assisting any embattled Northern forces – commented: They thought the Houghton an unarmed transport, or would not have fired at her. For once they caught a tartar. The bark's fire knocked out one of the Southern guns and inflicted several casualties – both killed and wounded. Union difficulties in Virginia Meanwhile, events were taking place in Virginia, which would seriously weaken and ultimately disestablish the Mortar Flotilla. In a brilliant series of actions near Richmond, Virginia, – known to history as the Seven Days campaign – General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia turned back General George McClellan's thrust against the Confederate capital and drove the battered Union troops of the Army of the Potomac into a precariously held position on the north bank of the James River called Harrison's Landing. To help protect McClellan's beleaguered army, whose very existence was threatened, U.S. Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles ordered a dozen of the schooners to leave the Mississippi River and to sail north to reinforce the James River Flotilla which was protecting McClellan's flanks and keeping Lee's victorious troops at bay. Reassigned to Pensacola, Florida A. Houghton was one of the small numbers of Porter's vessels that remained in the West, but thereafter her role was changed. In mid-July, when a lack of ground forces to take and hold Vicksburg had convinced Farragut of the futility of his operations above Vicksburg, he again ran through the fire of the Southern guns and descended