 After New Orleans, Louisiana, and the forts protecting her bad surrendered, the mortar flotilla sailed to Mobile Bay, Alabama; but Farragut then ordered Porter to return to the Mississippi River, where the mortars were needed to engage the enemy's cliffside batteries at Vicksburg, Mississippi.The Confederates had cleverly placed these guns high on the bluffs of the Chickasaw Hills perfectly safe from the low trajectory cannon mounted on the Union's salt-water ships.All vessels of Porter's flotilla were back at New Orleans 9 June.