THE STEELE’S BAYOU EXPEDITION.
The last and most extraordinary of Grant’s unsuccessful attempts to reach Vicksburg was the Steele’s Bayou expedition through 200 miles of narrow, twisting bayous north of Vicksburg. Like the Yazoo Pass operation, it was an effort to turn the city’s right flank. This shorter route had been originally scouted in order to send aid to the Yazoo Pass expedition when that column seemed in great danger of being cut off and captured. Further exploration suggested the route to the bluffs by way of Steele’s Bayou might prove the best of all possible approaches to Vicksburg, and Porter himself commanded the squadron of 11 vessels which entered Steele’s Bayou from the Yazoo River on March 16.
The route was heavily obstructed by natural hazards, but Porter, warned by apprehensive officers who feared that superstructures would be carried away in crashing through the closely overhung waterways, answered with the declaration, “All I need is an engine, guns, and a hull to float them.” Progress was slow through winding streams barely wide enough to admit passage of the gunboats. This time alert Confederates, aided by treacherous obstructions in the mouth of the Rolling Fork, nearly succeeded in shutting up and capturing the entire fleet by felling huge trees across the bayou to block Porter’s retreat.
Skirmishing in the heavily wooded and flooded bottom lands during the bayou expeditions. From a wartime sketch.
Sherman, following behind the fleet with infantry, received word of Porter’s danger, and an eerie night march ensued. By the flaring light of candles held in the muzzles of their rifles, the Federal soldiers splashed through the canebrake hip deep in water and arrived in time to drive off the Confederates who had moved in behind the Union fleet. Three days were required to back the fleet to safety on the Mississippi, which was reached late in March. Grant had now tested all possible approaches to Vicksburg as he attempted to swing wide around its flanks to the north and south. Every effort had failed. In April, the Union Army was no closer to Vicksburg than it had been in December. The Southern bastion on the Mississippi had successfully withstood Union land and naval attacks for almost a year.
The Vicksburg Campaign: Grant Moves Against Vicksburg—and Succeeds
In the eyes of many in the North, Grant’s Army had floundered in the swamps for months with nothing to show for it except a steadily mounting death list from disease. Criticism of the Union commander mounted. “I don’t know what to make of Grant, he’s such a quiet little fellow,” said Lincoln, thinking of the more flamboyant leaders who had led his Eastern armies, “The only way I know he’s around is by the way he makes things git.” Lincoln had grown increasingly fond of Grant, whose army, while ineffective, had never been inactive. Now he declared to Grant’s critics, “I think we’ll try him a little longer.”
Although Grant had made every effort to navigate the bayous and reach Vicksburg, he was later to record that little hope had been entertained that success would greet these ventures. While waiting for the dry season which would permit land operations, however, he had determined to exhaust every possibility and to retain the fighting edge of his army by keeping it constantly on the move. As April arrived and the roads began to emerge from the slowly receding waters, Grant prepared to execute the movement which he had believed from the first to be the logical approach against Vicksburg—marching down the west bank of the Mississippi through Louisiana, crossing the river south of the city, and laying siege to it from the rear.