Union gunboats and mortars arrived on March 15, and the siege of Island No. 10 began. Union ground forces led by General John Pope, in New Madrid, and Union naval forces led by Admiral Andrew Hull Foote, upstream of the bend, were kept apart by Island No. 10. From the first, they did not agree how to go about conducting the operation. Pope wanted immediate action; Foote hoped to subdue the island by the slow process of bombardment. As early as March 17, Pope was asking that two or three gunboats run past the Confederate batteries, to enable him to cross the river and trap the entire garrison. Foote demurred, arguing that his boats were not invincible. For the next two weeks, fighting consisted of bombardment of the island at rather long range, mostly conducted by the mortars, and occasionally replied to by the Confederate batteries.