CHAPTER XXIII.

THE YAZOO PASS EXPEDITION.

DURING February, 1863, a plan was proposed to open a closed up route of water travel between the Mississippi River and the Coldwater and Tallahatchie Rivers, through the Yazoo Pass. This pass had for many years been unnavigable, stagnant, dreary, and wild, and had been almost forgotten. The primary object of this expedition was to enable a few troops with some light draft gunboats to reach the upper part of the Yazoo River, for the purpose of destroying the enemy's transports; but it was afterwards discovered that, when the snags and low timber had been cut away from that part of the water-course which had been so long closed, the navigation proved to be much better than was suspected. It was, therefore, deemed not impossible to use the route for a flank movement by water upon Haines's Bluff, which commanded the Yazoo River a short distance above the mouth. Had this plan been found practicable, a large body of troops would have been sent around by this route; but for want of proper vessels for transportation, the force detailed was insufficient to clear the way throughout.

On the 24th of February, 1863," the fleet entered the pass, after tearing down that part of the levee of the Mississippi River that closed up the entrance; and, by the 28th, after a series of dangers, slow travelling, etc., the vessels arrived in the Coldwater River. Some idea of the nature of the work to be accomplished in opening up this routo

may be gathered from the following extracts, from a description penned by one of the parties who took an active part in the expedition :

UNITED STATES GUNBOAT MARMORA, COLDWATER RIVER, MISS., Feb. 28, 1863. The Rubicon is passed. Three and a half days of most tedious, vexatious, bothersome, troublesome, and damaging steamboating has brought this expedition twenty miles on its way, and disclosed to its view the end of the now famous Yazoo Pass. A more execrable place was never known. Should one propose to run a steamboat to the moon he would be considered equally sane, by those who had seen the Yazoo Pass before this expedition forced its way through it, as the person who proposed this movement.

I would like to describe the Yazoo Pass. I would like to compare it to something that would be intelligible. But I know of nothing in heaven or on earth, or in the waters under the earth, that will compare with it. Had the immortal bard desired a subject from which to draw a picture of the way that leads to the realms of darkness and despair, he had only to picture the Yazoo Pass. Let me try, in the feeble language I can command, to describe it. Perhaps the reader has passed through the Dismal Swamp of Virginia; or, if not, he has read accounts of travellers who have enjoyed that privilege. Then he has heard of the famous jungles of India. He has seen or read of the unbroken silence of the boundless tall forests of the John Brown tract in Western New York. Conceive the ugliest features of these three varieties of territory, and he will be able, by combining them, to form a tolerably correct idea of the region through which the Yazoo Pass runs. Those who have watched the course of a snake as he trails his way along the ground, winding this way and that, hither and yonder, going in all directions at the same time, and yet maintaining something of a regular course in the average, will, by exaggerating the picture in their own minds, understand something of the tortuous course of the Yazoo Pass. I have passed through it from one end to the other, and I assert candidly that there is not throughout its entire length a piece two hundred feet long of perfectly straight river. The orders under which this expedition moved required that boats should keep three hun. dred yards apart; but there was no place to be found in the whole stream where they could see one-third of this distance ahead or behind them. Once, indeed, we did catch a glimpse of the Rattler, flagship. She was just abreast of us, and about one hundred yards away, going

in an opposite direction to us. We fancied we were close on to her, and, as it was near night, concludea to tie up, so as to let her get away from us. The next morning we got under way at daylight, and just as the sun was at the meridian we passed the spot where we had seen our file leader eighteen hours before.

Much has been said and written of the efforts put forth by the rebels to obstruct this pass. Their labor was all thrown away. Nature had placed greater obstructions in the way than any an enemy could place there, no matter how powerful he might have been or how long he had been employed. Cypress and sycamore trees lined the banks in great profusion, intermixed with gigantic cotton-woods bearing the wildest entanglement of wild grape-vines. The stream itself is never to exceed a hundred feet in breadth, and frequently not more than fifty or seventy-five. Over this the timber forms a most perfect arch, frequently, as good fortune would have it, so high as to admit the easy passage of the tall smokestacks beneath it, but sometimes grazing their tops, and again angrily toppling over these intruders. But Providence evidently did not intend this pass for a military highway. Providence opposed the movement, not so much by this high arch enclosing the river and shutting it out from view, as by the long, jagged limbs it thrust out from the trees directly across the channel, and the numerous crooked and leaning trees that formed a most effective blockade.

It may be possible, from what I have written, to get an idea of the Yazoo Pass. A short account of the trip through it will be more profitable for this purpose. The total length of the pass from the Mississippi to the Coldwater River is twenty miles. From the Mississippi to the east side of Moon Lake, where the pass proper commences, is called eight miles, leaving the distance from Moon Lake to the Coldwater twelve miles. We left the lake on Wednesday morning, the 25th inst., and reached the Coldwater this afternoon just after dinner, making the trip in exactly three days and a half! To be sure, we did not travel nights, but we made, usually, about twelve hours time each day. This gives the rapid progress of one mile in three and a half hours. Does the progress made express any thing of the character of the route? If it does not, I hardly know what will. In the upper end of the pass the stream is confined, and runs along with great rapidity through its narrow channel, the rate being not less than five or six miles per hour. Lower down there are strips of bottom-land along the sides which are now overflown, giving greater width, and consequently less rapidity to the current. But in no place were we able even to drift with the cur

rent.

That would inevitably have dashed us into the timber and have torn our boat to atoms. From the time we entered the pass until we emerged from it, we could only keep our wheels backing, and even this was not enough. A small boat was requisite on either side, by which lines were passed out and made fast to the trees, to check our headway or ease us around the sharp bends. The expedition has been facetiously called "the stern-wheel expedition," from the circumstance of there being none but stern-wheel boats (which are narrower than side-wheel steamers) engaged in it; but it might with equal propriety be called "the back-water expedition," or "the hold-back expedition," because of our advancing only by holding back.

But with all our care and labor, it has been impossible to save our boats from much damage. Frequently it was impossible to check the headway of a vessel in time to save its smokestacks, and away would go these tall iron cylinders, crashing through the hurricane deck, and making a complete wreck of the cabin and light upper works. Again a huge limb would come crashing and smashing along the side, tearing away stanchions and braces, and sometimes even the light bulkheads around the upper works. The flagship was thus visited, and Acting Commander Smith's cabin turned into a complete wreck. In fact, all the vessels looked as if they had been in a hard fought battle and had been badly worsted, only that none of them were damaged in machinery or hull. It has been a most exciting trip; but I believe or hear all have survived it save one poor old nigger—a contraband-belonging to this vessel. He was lying in his hammock, in the sick bay, being on the sick list, when a huge limb, broken off by the persistence of our smokestacks, came down endwise upon the deck, and, passing through, administered the death blow to poor Cuffee.

COLDWATER RIVER, March 3, 1863.

We are progressing towards our destination, though slowly. To-day we have made about six miles down stream, and are now catching our breath after this rapid locomotion, preparatory to an early start tomorrow morning. The Coldwater River is but a slight improvement on the Yazoo Pass. It is a trifle wider, it is true-so wide, in fact, that the branches seldom meet above it-but in other respects we have gained nothing, so far as ease of navigation is concerned. Rather we have lost as much as we have gained, since the increased width of the stream is quite counterbalanced by the sluggishness of the current The course of the stream is nearly as tortuous as that of the pass, so

that we cannot yet venture to steam ahead, and as floating and backing up continues to be the order, the progress made is provokingly slow.

Since my last date we have lain quiet at the mouth of the pass, waiting for all the boats to come up. This detained us until this morning, when we once more started forward.*

The rebels had, however, gained information of the Union movement through Yazoo Pass; but at first scouted the idea of its success, prophesying the destruction of every vessel connected with the expedition. When, however, they ascertained that the fleet had safely arrived in the Coldwater River, they, knowing that the other part of the stream was navigable, at once began diligently closing up the lower end of the Tallahatchie River, into which the Coldwater empties itself. This was accomplished by erecting a fort across the neck of land caused by a change of course of the stream after the Yalabusha had formed a junction with the Tallahatchie. These united waters were named the Yazoo River, which, after flowing through several hundred miles of country, empties itself into the Mississippi River a little above Vicksburg.

The advance of the expedition under General Ross proceeded without serious interruption through the Coldwater and Tallahatchie Rivers until it reached this newly erected fort, which was designated Fort Pemberton-it having been constructed by some of the forces that had been sent from Vicksburg for that purpose. At the point where the fort was erected, the distance from the Tallahatchie shores above the defences, to the Yazoo shores below that work, was but a few hundred yards by land, but was several miles by water. The fort, having been built across the neck, commanded both streams for a long distance. The rebels had well chosen their defensive position, as the land about the fort was low, and at the time of the

*Correspondence of the New York Herald March 14th, 1863.