By March of 1863, the Union Army under the command of Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant was desperately searching for a way to bypass the Confederate batteries positioned high on the bluffs along the Mississippi River at Vicksburg. The Union had already spent months trying to canal through a river bend opposite the city to create a passage out of the Confederate guns’ reach, but in mid-March it launched an even more extraordinary and dangerous attempt to take Vicksburg.

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The plan entailed sending five Union gunboats through 100 miles of narrow, twisting waterways and bayous north of Vicksburg. Under constant Confederate attacks, blockades and sniper fire, the Steele Bayou Expedition was ultimately the final Union failure at Vicksburg. The Northern army would take the city months later, on July 4 — after running their gunboats past the city’s batteries — but they narrowly averted losing their entire supply lines during the expedition.

With the recent release of a free tour guide and the implementation of seven interpretive signs by the Lower Delta Partnership, tourists can now retrace the Union’s ill-fated voyage at 11 historic stops between Vicksburg and Rolling Fork.   

“It’s a great Sunday drive,” said Meg Cooper, coordinator of the Lower Delta Partnership. “For Civil War enthusiasts it will enhance their experience and understanding of the Vicksburg campaign, and it provides all tourists a chance to see the gorgeous scenery of the Delta.” 

Fully taking in all of the stops will require at least four hours, said Cooper, but she suggests tourists include a lunch in Rolling Fork and turn the 100-mile round-trip drive into a full day of sightseeing in the Delta.

The Lower Delta Partnership put together the tour guide and interpretive signs with a $37,000 grant acquired through the National Park Service’s Lower Mississippi Delta Initiative program in 2006. The tour guides were printed last summer, but the project was completed last week when the signs were installed.

The first stop of the tour is at the USS Cairo Museum in the Vicksburg National Military Park. While the Cairo was not among the five gunboats on the expedition, VNMP Historian Terry Winschel said it will give people an idea of just how immense the ironclads attempting to navigate down the bayous and rivers were.

“No one had ever tried to take vessels that large down those waterways, and it almost ends up disastrously for the Union,” he said.

Rear Adm. David Dixon Porter of the U.S. Navy commanded the five gunboats that entered Steele Bayou from the Yazoo River on March 13 and 14. Although the bayous and rivers at that time were deeper and wider during spring flooding as there were no levees, the ironclads were nonetheless forced to travel single file with no room to maneuver or turn around. Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman coordinated and led a division of Union infantry to march in support of the gunboats.

The Union plan was to gain control of the Mississippi River and Yazoo River, and thereby isolate Vicksburg, by outflanking Confederate batteries north of the city at Snyder’s Bluff. The proposed route went nearly 30 miles up Steele Bayou to Black Bayou, 4 miles to Deer Creek and then 30 more miles to Rolling Fork Creek. From there, the Union hoped to navigate to the Yazoo River via the Big Sunflower River. They made it as far as Deer Creek at Rolling Fork before a skirmish with Rebels forced Porter to put the gunboats in reverse and spare having them overtaken by the Confederates.

“Not only were the Confederates felling trees in front of the Union gunboats, they were also felling trees behind them to prevent them from withdrawing,” explained Winschel.

Sherman’s troops were eventually able to hold off the Rebel attacks and aid the gunboats in backing out of the Steele Bayou Expedition less than two weeks after it was launched. Had the Confederates been able to capture the gunboats and use the Union weapons and supplies onboard for themselves, Winschel speculated the entire course of the Civil War could have been drastically altered.

“It could have had profound effects on the war in the western theater. Certainly, it could have delayed the fall of Vicksburg for an indefinite period of time,” said Winschel. “Had the Union fleet been lost there’s no telling what could have happened, but I dare say Dixon Porter would have been relieved from his duties, as would have Sherman and Grant.”

Winschel, who aided with the tour guide production, said the Steele Bayou Expedition tour furthers the park’s goal of providing a complete and accurate picture of the 18-month-long Vicksburg campaign and the events that led up to the historic 47-day siege of the city. 

“The Vicksburg campaign is one of the largest and most complex military campaigns ever conducted, and there is so much more to it than the siege that it is commonly known for,” he said. “This tour really gives folks the opportunity to understand the complexity of the campaign, the magnitude of the operations and the different strategies of the Union forces as they try to take Vicksburg.”

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Contact Steve Sanoski at ssanoski@vicksburgpost.com.