In late August 1864, Federal forces controlled Mobile Bay but could not attack Mobile because the upper bay channels had been obstructed and Admiral Farragut could not reach the city even with light-draft vessels, while U.S. General Edward Canby lacked enough troops for an overland attack and could do little more than make occasional demonstrations from the bay to keep the Confederates off balance. After C.S. General John Bell Hood's decisive defeat at Nashville in December, conditions changed, and in the winter of 1865 U.S. General Ulysses S. Grant ordered Canby to capture Mobile, Selma, and Montgomery and sent reinforcements. By March, Canby had 45,000 men on the Gulf Coast, with most of his army gathered at Dauphin Island and Pensacola and his siege train and supply depot organized at Fort Gaines. Expecting an attack, the Confederates reinforced Mobile, and C.S. General Richard Taylor sent C.S. General Dabney Maury 3,000 infantrymen and 1,500 artillerists, veterans from Hood's army, so that by the opening of Canby's campaign Maury had 9,000 men to oppose him. Because the fortifications around Mobile were considered the most formidable in the South, Canby avoided them by marching up the eastern shore of the bay, while U.S. General Frederick Steele moved north from Pensacola to strike the railroad at Pollard, feint toward Montgomery, and attack Blakeley from the north. Delayed for weeks by unusually heavy rains, Canby finally moved on March 17, with U.S. General James Veatch's division of Granger's XIII Corps going by transport from Dauphin Island to Navy Cove that day, U.S. General A.J. Smith's XVI Corps sailing to Fish River on March 19, and Steele leaving Pensacola on March 20. Meanwhile, on March 18, Colonel J.B. Moore's brigade of Smith's corps embarked for Cedar Point carrying two Rodman guns and moved inland in a deception meant to exaggerate its strength. Regimental bands beat repeated tattoo and reveille calls to make the force seem much larger, and the ruse succeeded: the Confederates estimated Moore's 1,700 men at 6,000, and Maury temporarily diverted a brigade toward Cedar Point. Moore marched to Fowl River, skirmishing along the way and discovering torpedoes, or subterra shells, but suffering no injuries, then returned to Cedar Point and embarked for Fish River on March 23.