For three months the _Florida_ had lain at anchor in the harbor at Mobile, only waiting for a good opportunity to enter upon her historic career of destruction. Since the 20th of August the _Alabama_ was known to have been scourging our commerce in the North Atlantic from the Azores to the Antilles. On the 5th of December she took a prize off the northern coast of San Domingo. Relying on the information with which he was freely furnished, Semmes expected to find the expedition off Galveston about the middle of January. In the dead of night, "after the midwatch was set and all was quiet," he meant, in the words of his executive officer,(1) slowly to approach the transports, "steam among them with both batteries in action, pouring in a continuous discharge of shell, and sink them as we went." Fortunately Semmes's information, though profuse and precise, was not quite accurate, for it brought him off Galveston on the 13th of January: the wrong port, a month too late. What might have happened is shown by the ease with which he then destroyed the _Hatteras_.
To guard against these dangers, it had been the wish of the government, and was a part of the original plan, that the transports sailing from New York should be formed in a single fleet and proceed, under strong convoy, to its destination. However, it soon became evident that as the rate of sailing of a fleet is governed by that of its slowest ship, the expedition, thus organized, would be forced to crawl along the coast at a speed hardly greater than five miles an hour. This would not only have exposed three ships out of five, and five regiments out of six, for at least twice the necessary time to the perils of the sea, increased by having to follow an inshore track at this inclement season; it would not only have introduced chances of detention and risks of collision and of separation, but the peril from the _Alabama_ would have been augmented in far greater degree than the security afforded by any naval force the government could just then spare. Therefore, the slow ships were loaded and sent off first and the faster ones kept back to the last; then, each making the best of its way to Ship Island, nearly all came in together. Thus, when the _North Star_, bearing the flag of the commanding general and sailing from New York on the 4th of December, arrived in the early morning of the 13th at Ship Island, nearly the whole fleet lay at anchor or in the offing; and as soon as a hasty inspection could be completed and fresh orders given, the expedition got under way for New Orleans. The larger vessels, however, like the _Atlantic, Baltic_, and _Ericsson_ being unable to cross the bar, lay at anchor at Ship Island until they could be lightened.