Thanks. I don't think deception played as big a part of not entering the mouth of the Arkansas as the nature of the lower Arkansas itself. Shallow, full of snags and ever changing sandbars. ( and that still is an accurate description of the Arkansas from Dam 2 to mouth today) The White on the other hand, maintained a fairly stable channel. All the gunboats were shallow draft. But even with that you had the ram that was fairly deep draft and the danger to all of being sunk by a snag.