During the 1863 campaign against Vicksburg, General Grant tried to reach the city by sending troops on transports down the Tallahatchie and Yazoo Rivers after cutting the Mississippi River levee in February and flooding the bayous between the Mississippi and Tallahatchie Rivers to create a navigable connection. The first expedition included twenty-two transports carrying 5000 troops, two ironclads, two rams, and six light draft gunboats, and it was later reinforced with another brigade and additional vessels. Because the bayous were narrow and tortuous, the two hundred mile trip took several weeks. After learning of the Federal plan, Confederate General John C. Pemberton ordered a fort built at a sharp eastward bend of the Tallahatchie where the river approached in a straight stretch and only two gunboats could pass abreast, giving the defenders a direct field of fire. Hastily constructed of cotton bales covered with earth and named Fort Pemberton, it mounted only a few light guns, though one eight inch rifle was very accurate, and it was manned by 1500 men under Brig. Gen. W.W. Loring. Flooding left water as the only approach, and the steamship Star of the West was sunk in the channel to further obstruct the enemy. When the Federal flotilla arrived on March 11th, the two ironclads attacked from 1000 yards, but both were damaged after several attempts to reduce the fort, and the fleet withdrew to the Mississippi, leaving Grant unsuccessful in reaching Vicksburg by the Tallahatchie-Yazoo route.
