The Yazoo Pass project, which sought to turn the right flank of Vicksburg by sending an expedition through the Delta waterways to the bluffs north of the city, was for a time the most promising of the bayou attempts. By exploding a mine in the Yazoo Pass, 325 river miles north of Vicksburg, access from the Mississippi into the rivers of the Delta was secured. With paddle wheels reversed against the roaring current which surged through the crevasse, and suffering extensive damage in collisions with trees and floating debris, the gunboats and transports carrying a division of infantry began the hazardous journey. Almost a month was required to reach the calmer waters of the Coldwater River.
Notified of the threat, Pemberton dispatched Maj. Gen. W. W. Loring’s Division to halt the Union advance. Fort Pemberton, overlooking the Yalabusha River 90 miles north of Vicksburg, was quickly constructed of earth and cotton bales. The land surrounding the fort was completely flooded, permitting approach by water only. On March 11, the Union gunboats began an artillery bombardment and were promptly greeted by a heavy return fire as “Old Blizzards” Loring gained his nickname by pacing the parapet and urging his gunners to, “Give them blizzards, boys! Give them blizzards!” Grant had planned to send 30,000 men through the Yazoo Pass; but Loring’s gunners blasted back every attempt to pass the fort, forcing the fleet to withdraw. The Yazoo Pass expedition was one of the great flanking attempts of the war—the route from Milliken’s Bend to the rear of Vicksburg through the pass was over 700 miles, yet it was only 30 miles direct from Milliken’s Bend to Vicksburg.
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.”