 The flotilla sailed from Key West 6 March and on 11 March anchored at Ship Island, Mississippi, the staging area for Flag Officer David Farragut's New Orleans, Louisiana, campaign.A week later "John Griffith" was towed across the bar at Pass a l'Outre with Porter's other mortar schooners.For the next month, while Farragut labored to move his deep-draft, sea-going ships across the bar and into the Mississippi, Porter's vessels drilled and prepared for the fight awaiting them.