expedition was entirely overflowed. General Ross, therefore, in attacking this work, could not make use of his land forces to reduce it, and had to depend on the armed vessels under his command. After an engagement of several hours, these vessels had to withdraw without silencing the battery.

Finding that this obstruction prevented the water route from being used by the army, General Grant, on March 23d, sent orders for the withdrawal of the forces.

One advantage, however, arose from the movement. It caused a diversion of a portion of the rebel force at Vicksburg, and engaged the attention of the rebel authorities while General Grant was perfecting his own plans.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE STEELE'S BAYOU EXPEDITION.

ADMIRAL PORTER, having made a naval reconnoissance up Steele's Bayou, and through Black Bayou to Duck Creek, returned to General Grant, and on March 14th, 1862, informed him that those water-courses were navigable for small gunboats and light draft transports. It was supposed that by following this route Deer Creek could be navigated to Rolling Fork, and thence by the Sunflower River into the Yazoo. Of the navigation of these two latter streams there was no doubt.

As the forces by way of the Cold water and Tallahatchie Rivers had been prevented from proceeding further in consequence of the construction of Fort Pemberton, it was deemed necessary to ascertain whether this new route could be made practicable. General Grant, therefore, accompanied Admiral Porter on the morning of March 15th on another reconnoissance. The vessel in which the two commanding officers had temporarily taken up their head-quarters, proceeded along Steele's Bayou-several iron-clads taking the lead to prevent a surprise-until it reached the Black Bayou. General Grant then returned to Young's Point, for the purpose of sending up a pioneer corps to clear away the overhanging trees, which appeared to be the only important obstruction to the successful navigation of the route, at least so far as it had been explored.

Soon after General Grant had reached Young's Point, a

message was received from Admiral Porter, who had proceeded on the reconnoissance, requesting the co-operation of a good military force. General Grant promptly sent to him a division of the Fifteenth Army Corps, with General Sherman at its head. The number of steam transports suitable for such an expedition being limited, the major part of the military force was sent up the Mississippi River to Eagle Bend, a point where the river runs within a mile of Steele's Bayou.

The only cause of the failure of this expedition was the want of knowledge of the country to be passed through, and this ignorance led the expedition on until it encountered serious difficulties, which could not be removed without great delay. This gave the rebels time to place obstructions in the way of further progress, and the movement had to be abandoned when within a few hundred yards of a point, which, if attained, would have secured complete

success.

The following is an interesting account of the expedition, from an eye witness:

BLACK BAYOU, MISS., March 21.

On the 16th inst., late in the afternoon, General Grant ordered General Stuart to prepare the infantry of his division to move at daylight next morning. Leaving transportation, horses, tents, and every thing except ammunition, arms, and rations, the division embarked and proceeded up the Mississippi to Eagle Bend. A few days before the embarkation, Admiral Porter and General Grant had made a personal reconnoissance of a proposed route to the Yazoo above Haines's Bluff, and General Sherman was ordered by General Grant to take charge of the opening of the route. General Sherman, with the pioneer corps of Stuart's Division and the Eighth Missouri, left at once with the steamer Diligent. In the evening General Grant received dispatches from Admiral Porter, announcing that his gunboats were meeting with great success, and asking that the land force be sent at once. Grant immediately ordered General Stuart to proceed with his division. The dis

tance by land from the Mississippi, along the Muddy Bayou, is about
one mile.
On account of the impossibility of taking any thing but small
steamers, of which we had but five, through Steele's Bayou, the infantry
was ordered to cross by this route to the bayou. On reaching Eagle
Bend, a personal examination of the ground made by Generals Stuart
and Ewing, disclosed the fact that two long bridges were necessary to
the movement of troops. The levee near the plantation of Senator
Gwin had been carried away by a crevasse, and the water was rushing
across his fields in a rapid torrent of considerable depth. The building
of the bridges occupied a day and a half. Soon as it was completed,
the division marched across to Steele's Bayou. General Stuart at once
embarked so much of the First Brigade as could be transported upon the
steamer Silver Wave, and started up through the wilderness of forest
and water.

Between the Mississippi and the line of railway from Memphis to
Jackson, the country north of the Yazoo, for some fifty miles, is trav-
ersed by three considerable streams, Steele's Bayou, Deer Creek, and
the Sunflower, all of which are fed by innumerable creeks, bayous,
and lakes, and empty into the Yazoo-Steele's seven miles from the
Mississippi, near the scene of the battle of Chickasaw Bayou; Deer
Creek below, and the Sunflower above Haines's Bluff.
Their course,

as is that of all streams through low and level ground, is very tortuous, very like the streams in the wild marshes. Transform the reeds of such marshes into the luxuriant growth of a Southern swamp, and a better idea could not be had of the wet wilderness in which we were. The eastern part of Issaguena county, on Deer Creek, has higher land, and some of the most valuable cotton plantations in the State. The soil is exceedingly prolific. We found in it immense numbers of slaves, and great quantities of cotton and grain. The Admiral called it one of the granaries of the Confederacy.

It was supposed to be so inaccessible, that the plantations were in the usual process of cultivation, the fields planted with corn, which was up, instead of cotton. They believed themselves beyond the reach of the devastations of war-had their gardens well stocked with vegetables, which were growing most temptingly, and, fancying that "the invader" could not penetrate, with gunboats and armies, the lagoons and forests which surrounded them, devoted their fancied security to the raising of crops to feed their brother rebels in the field. The appearance of the iron-clads was the first notice they had had of our approach. The overseer hastily fled, giving notice of the presence of the Yankees

in the garden. A contraband told us, his master called the Deer Creek country the Confederate snuff-box, that the Yankees could not open.

Going up the Yazoo river seven miles, thence up Steele's Bayou twelve miles, the fleet came to Muddy Bayou, which runs across from the Mississippi into Steele's. At this point the troops came over on floating bridges and embarked. Hence they were transported up Steele's and Black Bayou about twenty miles to Hill's plantation, and marched thence twenty-one miles on a levee north along Deer Creek nearly to Rolling Fork. It was proposed at that point to embark the troops again on transports, and proceed on that creek a distance o seven miles, until we reached the Sunflower. Once upon the Sunflower, a stream of considerable width, we could reach the Yazoo, between Haines's Bluff and Yazoo City, and would be in a position to operate against the enemy at various points with great effect. So much for the object of the expedition and the route through which it was to pass.

General Grant and Admiral Porter, with the Musquito Rattler, and a tug, made a reconnoissance far enough to establish the fact that gunboats could pass from the Yazoo into Steele's Bayou. Admiral Porter immediately started with his gunboats up the Bayou. General Grant ordered General Sherman, with a division of his army corps, to form the land force. General Sherman started at once with a regiment, and the pioneer corps, to clear the bayou of obstructions-there was no delay. The reconnoissance was made on the 15th, General Grant's tug returning the morning of the 16th. Before night the advance of the land force and gunboats were at Muddy Bayou. Dispatches were received by General Grant that evening of the progress of the expedition, and General Stuart was ordered to follow with the rest of the division in the morning. Arriving at Eagle Bend on the 17th, a reconnoissance in small boats, made by General Suart and his brigade commanders, and another made twenty miles above, at Tullahola, by Colonel Giles A. Smith, demonstrated that the troops could not be marched across, a crevasse having swollen the Muddy Bayou to a rapid deep stream. The construction of two long floating bridges occupied the 18th and the forenoon of the 19th, and the division marched at once to Steele's Bayou. Arriving there, we found only one transport, the Silver Wave. Embarking two regiments, Stuart started up at once. During the three succeed. ing days, the boats which we had were used with all the dispatch possible, in transporting the troops to the rendezvous. At the mouth of Black Bayou they were transported from the steamers to a coal-barge, which was towed