For weeks Lincoln had been working behind the scenes to provide Grant and Foote with floating mortars, the brainchild of Gustavus Fox, who realized that the Mississippi, Cumberland, and Tennessee rivers would be convenient invasion routes and that to attack forts along their banks, mortars on boats would be essential. While still in charge of the Department of the West, Frémont to his credit approved the idea and ordered the construction of a mortar fleet at Cairo. It was to assist the army in a thrust led by Grant, who had obtained permission from Halleck to launch an offensive down the Tennessee. Special beds had to be manufactured to accommodate the gigantic 13-inch mortars. This was successfully accomplished for a flotilla being constructed in New Jersey at the behest of David Dixon Porter, who was planning to attack New Orleans, but Lincoln grew anxious as the work on a similar fleet in Cairo was seemingly abandoned. On January 10, the cabinet learned that nobody knew anything about those vessels. When he made inquiries, Lincoln was infuriated to discover that no mortars had been constructed for Foote’s armada and only two mortar beds. He instructed Navy Lieutenant Henry A. Wise “to put it through.” With fierce determination, he told Wise on January 23, “I am going to devote a part of every day to these mortars and I won[’]t leave off until it fairly rains Bombs.” He wanted “to rain the Rebels out” and “treat them to a refreshing shower of sulphur and brimstone.” When word of the president’s special interest in the flotilla reached Cairo, it galvanized the officers and men there.
Source: Abraham Lincoln ∶ A Life ▫𓂃