May 27, 1863, The New York Herald
SUCCESS OF ADMIRAL PORTER’S EXPEDITION UP THE YAZOO.
SKETCH OF YAZOO CITY AND VICINITY.
Yazoo City is a post village of Yazoo county, Mississippi, of which county it is the capital. At one time it was a very flourishing place for a Southern inland village, its trade arising in consequence of its being situated on a fine and navigable river of the same name. It is situated about fifty miles from Jackson, in a north-northwesterly direction. It is situated in the heart of a rich cotton growing region, and in times of prosperity about fifty thousand bales were annually received and shipped from this place to New Orleans by steamboats, which were able to navigate the river in all stages of the water. The village contained several churches, and had in 1853 a population of 2,000 persons, supporting two newspapers. The county in which the […..] is located has an area of about 760 square miles, or nearly half a million of acres. The Big Black river forms its southeastern boundary and the Yazoo its western and northwestern. The surface is a level alluvial plain, the soil of which is exceedingly fertile. The population of the county in 1860 was 22, 373, of which only 5,657 were free.
THE YAZOO RIVER, on which the city is situated, is formed by the union of the Tallahatchie and the Yallobusha rivers, which united at Leflore, in Carroll county; it then pursues a nearly southerly course, very tortuous and winding, and empties into the Mississippi river about a dozen miles above the city of Vicksburg. The main stream is two hundred and ninety miles in length, and is deep, narrow and sluggish. It is considered the best stream of its size for navigable properties, perhaps, in the whole world. The Tallahatchie, one of its tributaries, is navigable for over a hundred miles higher up than the junction.