In March 1863, Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman's XV Corps assembled at Eagle Bend to march inland approximately one mile along Muddy Bayou to Steele's Bayou, where the troops were to be loaded onto transports for Admiral Porter's naval operation up Steele's Bayou and Deer Creek. Flooding slowed the advance so severely that Sherman spent three days moving one mile, and by then Porter's gunboats were trapped at Rolling Fork. Sherman's men hurried north and arrived just in time to rescue the fleet.