So
I determined to get into the Yazoo below Fort Pemberton.
Steel's Bayou empties into the Yazoo River between Haines' Bluff and its
mouth. It is narrow, very tortuous, and fringed with a very heavy
growth of timber, but it is deep. It approaches to within one mile of
the Mississippi at Eagle Bend, thirty miles above Young's Point.
Steel's Bayou connects with Black Bayou, Black Bayou with Deer Creek,
Deer Creek with Rolling Fork, Rolling Fork with the Big Sunflower River,
and the Big Sunflower with the Yazoo River about ten miles above Haines'
Bluff in a right line but probably twenty or twenty-five miles by the
winding of the river. All these waterways are of about the same nature
so far as navigation is concerned, until the Sunflower is reached; this
affords free navigation.
Admiral Porter explored this waterway as far as Deer Creek on the 14th
of March, and reported it navigable. On the next day he started with
five gunboats and four mortar-boats. I went with him for some distance.
The heavy overhanging timber retarded progress very much, as did also
the short turns in so narrow a stream. The gunboats, however, ploughed
their way through without other damage than to their appearance. The
transports did not fare so well although they followed behind. The road
was somewhat cleared for them by the gunboats.
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