Year: 1863

| Williams Cut-OGs Opposite VieksburG.


The general course of the Mississippi,
as all well know, is nearly due south, but


in detail it is exceedingly tortuous. When
Vicksburg FIRST appears in sight to the


traveller down the river, its direction is
almost due east, nearly three miles dis


tant. At Vieksburg the stream doubles


completely upon itself, and for three miles
additional its course is exactly reversed.


A peninsula, or tongue of land, is thus
formed, with a length Of nearly three


miles and width Of little less than mile.


At the commencement or neck Of this Pc


ninsula it is more contracted than at any


other point. The people of Vieksburg have


long feared that the river would make its


way across the bend, and'thus cut them off


from the steamboat navigation of the Mis-


sissippi.


If the channel is once formed across the
neck, no earthly power can prevent the
main course Of the stream from following
this direction. A bar would speedily form
at the lower end of the cutoff, and the
main channel would gradually fill up or
form q lake. Navigation will follow the
shortest route, and Vicksburg will become
one Of the cities that were.


On the peninsula the ground is much
lower than the surface Of the river at or
dinary floods, and an immense levee has
been built entirely around to preserve it
from overflow. The Shreveport and Vicks-
burg railroad passes along the center of
the peninsula and terminstes at the ex-
tremity opposite the town. It was along
this railroad that Colonel Crafts Wright
operated during the recent attack upon
Vicksburg as far as Delhi, and destroyed
the track. The charter Of the road was
made perpetual, in order TO prevent the
possibility of the State Of Louisiana ever
permitting the cut being made across
Admiral Farragut, on his arrival before
Vicksburg last June, perceived the great
advantage TO our movements that would
arise from the channel extending across
the peninsula out Of range of the batteries
Of Vicksburg, and saving a distance Of
several miles. Not having any particular
reverence for the feelings Of the natives of
YicksbUrg, nor of the parish Of Madison,
in the State Of Louisiana, heat the sug-
gestion and according to the plan of Gen
eral Thomas Williams, who was killed at
Baton Rouge-decided to make the chan
mel and sent a boat TO visit the planta-
tions for twenty-five miles down the river
and impress all the negroes that could be
found. Four hundred of them were soon
set at work cutting the canal; but there
was some fear that the project would not
at that time succeed, as the river was then
over ten feet within its banks. At its
highest floods it is twenty feet above its
then level.


The Richmond papers of last July stated
that the attempt of Lincoln's army of dig
gers to draw off the Mississippi from Vicks-
burg, by cutting for it new channel, ex-
cited very little solicitude there. The task,
they said, was one Of great difficulty, and
would require long time to make it sue
cessful. In all the enterprises for straight
ening the river, made by the citizens of
the lower Mississippi, it was found that,
after cutting through few feet of sand
blue clay was entered upon, which is so
exceedingly tough as to require blasting
to remove it; and unless the new channel
is cut very deep, it is speedily choked and
filled up with dirt, wood, sand, Sc. The
rebels, however, when our forces withdrew
from Vicksburg last summer, began speed
lily to fill up the cut Z" for fear of acci-
dents"


The last reports from Yicksburg, via
Cairo, state that the river is now bank
and that two brigsdes Of McClern-
ends troops are engaged excavating the
old canal. A few days will doubtless de-
eide whether it will be a success or not,
and if it is, Vicksburg, defences and all,
will be entirely useless to the rebels, and
they will have to eonfne their operations
to Port Hudson.