March 8, 1863, The New York Herald
The Mississippi Valley Grand Campaign.
The opening of the Mississippi river is now the grand object which occupies the attention of both the Union and rebel armies. The former is determined to open the navigation of the river, while the latter, as evinced in the proclamation of Jeff. Davis, is as determined that it shall not be accomplished. As an evidence of this we have but to observe that a force of rebels are posted to resist our advance by the Yazoo Pass, while batteries and troops are employed at Vicksburg and Port Hudson to impede, and, if possible, stop our movements in those directions. The Union army is now engaged on three grand plans for the reduction of Vicksburg and the opening of navigation, and these plans the rebels are using might and main to thwart. There is little doubt but that the future historian will have to class the siege of Vicksburg among the most important sieges of the world.
The Three Union Plans.
THE CHANGING OF THE COURSE OF THE MISSISSIPPI.
Wars often cause great changes in the face of the countries in which they take place; but so great a change as the prospective one about to occur in the Mississippi valley has never yet been accomplished in the history of the world. Streams and even rivers have been turned by investing armies, and victories won by such a course of strategy; but never before has such an immense and powerful body of water been changed out of its course as is now contemplated in this region. Napoleon in his maxims recommends the using of streams as a means of either offence or defence, but there is no record of his turning a river for hundreds of miles from its natural bed, or of his opening an entirely new route of navigation by the same means.
CYRUS TURNED THE EUPHRATES AND CONQUERED BABYLON.
In ancient history we find that Cyrus, while commander of the army of the Medes and Persians, conquered Babylon by turning the course of the Uphrates, after having laid siege to the city for over two years. Taking advantage of a great annual Babylonish festival, when the whole city was engaged in revelling, he ordered the artificial bank of the Euphrates to be cut away, by which action the river passed off into another direction. This river, when flowing along its regular course, passed under the walls of the fortified city, and being drained, left an unguarded entrance into Babylon along its bed. Two columns of troops then entered the place by this channel and without opposition, and thus Babylon fell.
HOW THE DUTCH DEFEATED THE SPANIARDS.
The Dutch on one occasion defeated an invading army by changing the course of their streams. During the Spanish invasion of Holland in the sixteenth century the natives, to drive out the enemy, cut a number of the dykes, with which the country abounds, and let the waters overflow the lands to such an extent that the march of the invaders was prevented.
OUR PREVIOUS EFFORTS IN LIKE STRATEGY.
During the present war our armies and navy have made one or two attempts of a similar nature. The stone fleet attempted to block up and change the channel of the harbor of Charleston; but the measure was comparatively a failure, as it only helped to deepen instead of destroying the main channel. At New Madrid, Mo., a canal was cut whereby the bayous above Island No. 10 to the same river a few miles below that point. This canal, however, did not change the course of the main river – it merely opened a new route of travel. It, however, helped mainly in the reduction of the fortified island and like positions on the Kentucky shore, which had previously blockaded the Mississippi river. Military canals, and canals constructed under the authority of military engineers, have been cut in times of peace to open up countries, or to avoid rapids in rivers; but these did not directly change the course of the waters. They merely made new routes.
THE PRESENT SCHEME.
But the present scheme which is occupying the attention of our armies and fleets in the Southwest is of a far more gigantic character. The mighty Father of Waters is to be partially turned out of its course, and closed up routes of navigation are to be again opened. Three distinct plans of operation are now in progress, each important in itself, but all tending to the same object, namely; the reduction of Vicksburg.
LAKE PROVIDENCE CANAL ROUTE.
The principal of these movements, if we take the extent of country involved, is the Great Union river to be formed by the opening of the Mississippi into Lake Providence. By referring to our map it will be seen that the lake is a few miles south of the Louisiana – Arkansas line. It is situated in Carroll parish, Louisiana, and lies about one mile west of the Mississippi river, which, without doubt, once flowed through the bed of the lake. It is about six miles in length, and from it leads two, at the present time, not unimportant streams, viz: the Tensas river and the Bayou Macon. At the lower extremity of the lake its waters approach much nearer the river, and at this point the canal is being or has been cut. The removal of the levee allows the Mississippi waters to flow along its old channel into the lake easy from the river at a point seventy-five miles above the fortifications of Vicksburg. Having once entered the lake a navigable stream south can be formed by way of Tensas river. This river is two hundred and fifty miles long, and is navigable during six months of the year by steamboats for one hundred and fifty miles from its junction with the Washita. It pursues a tortuous course in a direction nearly parallel with the Mississippi until it unites with the Washita at Trinity, a village of Catahoula parish, La., twelve miles below Harrisonburg. The river thus formed is called the Black river, which falls into the Red river by three channels at a point about thirty miles above where the latter falls into the Mississippi river, nearly opposite the boundary line between the States of Mississippi and Louisiana. But as this outlet of the Red river is fifty miles above the fortified positions at Port Hudson, and between that place and Vicksburg, it becomes necessary to find another outlet to the Gulf than by the delta of the Mississippi, to reach which Port Hudson has to be passed.
THE ATCHAFALAYA RIVER now comes into play. This river is an outlet of the Red river – half bayou, half river – and commences a few miles from the mouth of the latter, at the north extremity of Pointe Coupee parish. It flows nearly southward through Schetimaches lake and enters Atchafalaya bay on the Gulf of Mexico. The whole length is estimated at two hundred and fifty miles. The channel is much obstructed with driftwood, which hinders a free navigation in the summer, but in high water steamers can navigate from the Red river to the Gulf. It is not at all unlikely – in fact it is almost a matter of certainty – that formerly this river or bayou formed its way into the Mississippi river above Port Hudson. If the waters of the Mississippi could be induced to flow with any degree of force into Lake Providence it would naturally make its way to the Red river; and if by any engineering skill the current of the Red river could again be made to flow along its original channel, the Atchafalaya, a powerful and navigable stream would be formed from the Mississippi fifty miles above Vicksburg, to the Gulf, a distance of over five hundred miles, cutting off Vicksburg, Port Hudson, Natchez and New Orleans.
CAN THE RED RIVER BE BLOCKED UP?
There is but little doubt, if any, that the Red river may be completely blocked up and the course of the stream turned into the Atchafalaya, if a proper engineer be set to work upon it. After the route through Lake Providence and the Tensas river is opened to the Red river, what is to prevent the transportation of hundreds of vessel loads of stone to the mouth of the stream and sunk? What is to prevent them being floated past the batteries to the same place? If the rebels sink them by their projectiles they only help to dam up the Mississippi, thereby forcing the water into Lake Providence. If the present water course of the Red river be blocked up, even only partially, the water will find its easiest outlet, and that is by way of the Atchafalaya. The scheme is practicable, and with very little skill and some amount of bravery can be easily accomplished. At least it can be tried, and by its success the cities of Vicksburg, Natchez, Port Hudson, Baton Rouge and New Orleans will soon be placed in the list of the departed – with Athens, Carthage, Tyre, Rome, Jerusalem and Ephesus. We do not suppose England will object to this arrangement.
THE PLAQUEMINE EXPEDITION.
In connection with this subject, the rebel newspapers report that an expedition of gunboats, with a large number of troops, left New Orleans some time since for up the river, and it is expected that more will yet follow. Of course the utmost secresy is observed on our side in the arrangements, but there is no doubt in the minds of the rebels extensive operations are contemplated on the Red river to open up this very route. The fleet, consisting of vessels of light draught, avoided Port Hudson, and, instead of entering the mouth of Red river, passed through one of the numerous bayous leading into the Red river, and leaving the Mississippi somewhere about Plaquemine; at least such is the accounts published in the rebel newspapers, although they doubt its final success.
THE VICKSBURG CUT OFF.
The next plan of operations is by the Vicksburg cut-off or canal. This canal, which was started from an idea suggested by the late General Williams, has been a matter of such publicity on both the Union and rebel sides of the question, and has been constructed under the eyes of the rebel military authorities, that there is no secret in the matter. The object of the canal was to induce the channel of the Mississippi to force itself along a new route, leaving Vicksburg far inland or on the edge of an inland lake. As yet the canal has not been proclaimed a success, although the prospects of its final completion are good. The rebels assert that the canal cannot be a success until the hard strata of the sub-soil is removed and the sand reached, and as they say that has not yet been done, nor is there a prospect of its being removed unless by blasting – an operation which they assert cannot be accomplished without a great amount of labor and loss of time – they pretend to laugh at the whole affair and consider it a failure.
THE REBEL BATTERIES AT VICKSBURG.
The rebels do not consider that their blockade of the Mississippi river at Vicksburg is entirely perfect, for a correspondent of the Knoxville Register, writing from Vicksburg, February 14, says: –
I am still more and more confirmed in my opinion that gunboats can pass down either night or day, and not be injured very much. A boat running at full speed down a swift current is hard to hit; but I think transports can be stooped, should they try it, especially in daylight. I guess we will have another trial about to-night with the two below. (This allusion is made to the Queen of the West and the De Soto, one of which has since been captured and the other destroyed. – ED. HERALD.) They will be able to command the river below as far as Port Hudson, and might help very much in reducing that place. The Mississippi has to be opened – so they say – and you may look every day to hear of stirring news from this quarter. Rumor says now that they are waiting for pontoons to lay across the river here. I think they will find it a hard job. But with another gunboat or two they could help to protect this bank while doing so, or while setting their troops across in the ferry boats and what small boats and skiffs they might haul across below. But I hardly think they would attempt such a hazardous expedition without more transportation.
The above quotation would intimate that a movement of the union army across the river for a land attack, in connection with a naval one, was expected by the rebels; but as yet we have received no intelligence that we can publish without detriment to the Union cause that would tend to confirm such an idea.
THE YAZOO PASS EXPEDITION.
We now come to the third of the gigantic operations relative to the turning of the rivers, bayous and streams into allies for the reduction of Vicksburg. This is known to the people of both North and South as the Yazoo Pass Expedition, and is at present exciting a great deal of uneasiness in the minds of the rebels. This Yazoo Pass was formerly a regular navigable water course; but, owing to the fact that when the Mississippi river rose above a certain level it would overflow almost all the adjacent lands, a legislative enactment caused its mouth at the Mississippi to be closed by the construction of a levee. The present expedition has opened the pass again by removing the levee and clearing away the obstructions. The rebels report that a steamer has succeeded in getting through the pass, but refuse to acknowledge that it will succeed in getting to the rear of Vicksburg. The Mobile Register, in alluding to the exertions made by the Union army to find a new route to Vicksburg by way of Yazoo Pass, says: –
The report of a Yankee steamer having got through this pass need cause no alarm. If it be true, the boat is in a nice trap, that is all. We were conversing yesterday with an old navigator who once took a steamboat through the pass to Yazoo, and they had almost to take her to places and carry her through piecemeal; at least it was actually necessary sometimes to take off her paddle boards. The Yazoo Pass, out from the Mississippi to Moon Lake, is short, and not difficult of navigation when in proper order. From Moon Lake to Coldwater river runs the Coldwater Pass, sixteen miles long – if it were stretched out – as crooked as the crookedest thing you can think of, and barely wide enough for a flatboat to get through. From this, by Coldwater river, the route lies to the Tallahatchie and Yazoo.
About twenty years ago this communication – the whole of which goes by the name of the Yazoo Pass – was rendered navigable by the State of Mississippi; but since that time the policy of the State has changed, and, preferring the reclamation of the swamp lands to the advantages of this navigation, the pass has been closed by an act of the Legislature, and a levee thrown across it on the Mississippi. For some time flatboat men persisted in breaking the levee and passing through it, to prevent which timber was felled so as to obstruct the channel, which was properly only navigable for flatboats at first.
The news from Memphis, however, shows that more than one vessel-of- war has pushed onward towards the Tallahatchie. Whether they have really fallen into a trap or not time alone will show.
The Route to Vicksburg.
On referring to our map it will be seen that the Yazoo Pass leads directly into Moon Lake, a sheet of water about two miles long, and then joins the Coldwater Pass, at the end of which the Coldwater river begins. This river rises in the northern part of the State of Mississippi, and flows in a west southwesterly direction of Tunica county, where it turns towards the south and enters the Tallahatchie river, in the county of that name. This last river is the principal branch of the Yazoo, and, after being joined by the Coldwater, pursues a southerly course until it unites with the Yallabusha, to form the Yazoo on the western border of Carroll county. From the entrance to Yazoo Pass to this point is a distance of between two hundred and fifty and three hundred miles. At high water the whole of this route is perfectly navigable for light draft steamboats. The Yazoo, as formed by the before mentioned junction, pursues a very serpentine course in a southerly direction, bearing west until it empties into the Mississippi above Vicksburg. The land through which it flows is very fertile, and the stream is deep, narrow and sluggish. The whole route from the pass to its mouth of the Yazoo is over five hundred miles, and is not equalled for navigable qualities, after the first few miles are passed, by any river of equal size.