The western Democrat. [volume] (Charlotte, N.C.) 1852-1870, 1863-04-14
TOPOGRAPHY OF THE SEAT OF WAR
IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY.
From the Raleigh State journal.

"e a"oco'eu 10 oui Irend, Carter Is. Harri
son, Esq, for the following interesting sketch q,
the seat of war in the Mississippi vaileyAwritteu
at our request. The kilograms from that onarte,
are 30 unintelligible and absurd that they render
our news from that quarter suspicious Mr. Har-
risen knows what he writes and what he SAYS is
the result of personal observation:
MEssRs. EDITORs:-The dispatches daily pub.
iished In your paper from the seat Of war in the
Mississippi Valley SO erroneous in Topography.
as to be totally uninteligible to the mass of your
ns readers. TO me they are provokingly absurd.
: HIS rehiark applies as well to our as to the Yam
kee accounts. Having lived FIVE wears in the
middle ground of the deha formed by rho M;ss;.,
siPpi and lazoo rivers, it may not be presumntuou.
to state that from Memphis to Vicksburp. there
is no high land. The country is one unbroken
swamp permeated by rivers and byous, and dotted
over with lakes and cypress ponds. These rivers
and byous have none of the characteristics of
rivers and creeks on the Atlantic slope Thew are
evidently formed by the efforts of the Great River
to dlsgorge ITS waters, during its food Conse-
quently they all issue from or over its banks
generally from the outer circle of its largest bend
because there, by the process of caring off, which
is always going on, the land is lower As the
waters leave the swamps they are collected in the
greatest depressions, and gradually abrade
devious channel, with deep banks. In summer
and fall being mostly dry, they grow up in frees,
brush and brars. Their general direction is from
north to SOUTH parallel with the meanders of their
great parent, who constantly repels their return
| till finally each and every one of them finds its
way into the Yazoo. Thus, leaving the Missis.
sippi at Greenville, in Washington county, six
miles east, an inconsderable byou issues from Fish
Lake, 1ows Oh into Swan Lake a little east IF
Lake Washington, the map-calIed
Black or Alligator Byou. From Swan Lake it
takes the name Of Stccle's Byou, continuing par
allel with the Mississippi at the distance of nor
more than eight miiesAat any point, till it enters
the Y azoo just dGOce its mouth. 1t is through
this Byou that the Yankees boast Of having passed
gup-boats to get by our batteries on ,he Yazoo
1t amounts to nothing than a by-path
through the woods to arrive at the same mouth of
the Yazoo, which is indeed opposite to Grants
late camp at IounS's Point twenty miles above
Vicksburg, and twenty miles below Miiliken's
Bend, his present encampment Steels Byou is |
perhaps 100 to l25 miles long, with not single |
farm bordering on it.
To-day, April I'd, they say their expedition
through Deer Greek is a success This is the |
next Byou (fOr IL is nothing else) eastwardly and
rises runs out of Lake Bolivar passing through
Washington and Issequena counties, enters the |
Yazoo just above the battle-ground of last Decem.
ber. 1t divides near the county line between the |
two last named counties, losing half its waters
through Rolling Fork into the Little Sunaower
of the 25th from Mobile, which asserted that Col |
Furgerson had repulscd the enemy at the mouth |
of Deep Greek on the SunHower 80 miles from |
it's junction with the Yazoo. That account is not
true as the feet (if it could enter the upper Sun
flower at alb would have had to cut It's way at
least 100 miles through that portion of the river
never hitherto navigatcd by keelboats even. |
assert that no expedition can leave the Mssis- |
sippi river and enter the Yazoo through Deer |
Creek, either in high low water, now that the
Mississippi is up, but because of 70 to 80 miles of
RATS and living trees.
Next is the Sunfoyer which rises in Coahoma
county, little below the Yazoo pass. Being in
the. middle of the great basin it is much larger,
and having length of 200 miles or more, it runs
all thesummer, and may be properly called river
At or about the county line Of Washington and
Tssequena it too divides-one half, called the Big
Sunfower, entering the Yazoo above Haines
Bluff; the other hslf, called Little SunHower, en-
tering the Yazoo six miles below the "Mound,"
so called, because at this point this river comes
within 400 yards of its recipient. On this mar !
roy neck of land is an old earth-work with two
mounds, the one commanding long stretch on
the one river, the other sharp bend on the Sun
flower. 1t is worthy of remark, that the trees on
these old en,bankments are as large as any in all
the swamp. 1t rs not likely the Confederate have
overlooked this very defensible point 1t may
now be called Hainc's bluff. At any rate it is !
close enough to admit Of the transfer Of artillery
from the one place TO the other in short order. /
The Yankees claim that they go out through
the Little Sunfower, aud avoid Hane's Bluff. (
But yet they must pass other dcfences below, and
at last find themselves at the mouth of the Yazoo,
as when they cane through Steele's Byou. These
are the only passes through which they could shul
Yazoo City and HaiDe's Bluff The Little Sun
flower has breadth and depth in the present stage
for anv manner of vessels Is miles Ahove tho
"mound." For 80 miles above, it has never
been navigated with steamboats, nor keelboa,s.
The upper portions partially settled: the lower
seventy-fve miles does not admit of settling. Ii
is an expanse of still water, studded with
trees far up their trunks 10 water. Think
for moment Of a military expedition 250 miles
from their supplies through such country. From
the hills skirting the Yazoo river to the Missis-
sippi across these Streams westwardly is about 5O
miles. Below the Issequena and Washington line
the only settlements on lower Deer Creek and
the river Mississippi; all else at this season is
covered with water. ...a.
From Vicksburg to Baton Rouge the river hugs
the hills closely. They generally high, round
and s:eep-sometilnes the bluffs present perpen-
dicular mural surface as at Natcbez, Ellis Cliffs
and Port Hudson.
On the west side of the Mississippi, from Cairo
10 New Orleans, the high land appears only at
Helena in Arkansas. Tie Washita bounds the
swamp up to Monroe, and then the Bartholomew
up to the Arkansas river. It il 40 miles wide on