ttle
delay. In the meantime I was much exercised for the safety of Ross, not
knowing that Quinby had been able to join him. Reinforcements were of
no use in a country covered with water, as they would have to remain on
board of their transports. Relief had to come from another quarter. 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. In the evening I
returned to headquarters to hurry up reinforcements. Sherman went in
person on the 16th, taking with him Stuart's division of the 15th corps.
They took large river transports to Eagle Bend on the Mississippi, where
they debarked and marched across to Steel's Bayou, where they
re-embarked on the transports. The river steamers, with their tall
smokestacks and light guards extending out, were so much impeded that
the gunboats got far ahead. Porter, with his fleet, got within a few
hundred yards of where the sailing would have been clear and free from
the obstructions caused by felling trees into the water, when he
encountered rebel sharp-shooters, and his progress was delayed by
obstructions in his front. He could do nothing with gunboats against
sharpshooters. The rebels, learning his route, had sent i