Fort Snyder at Snyders Bluff on the Yazoo River formed part of the Confederate defenses connected with Vicksburg. In April 1862, General Beauregard ordered Captain D.B. Harris, chief engineer at Vicksburg, Mississippi, to construct the battery on the Yazoo River and use booms, rafts, and piles. During the summer and fall of 1862, Confederate officers reported on the position's artillery needs and strategic importance, while Union leaders planned expeditions up the Yazoo to support operations against Vicksburg and the railroads beyond. On December 12, 1862, the steam ram Queen of the West and gunboats Marmora, Signal, Cairo, and Pittsburg ascended the Yazoo to remove torpedoes, and the Cairo was nearly blown out of the water, becoming the first vessel engaged in active warfare destroyed by a torpedo. On December 23, the Queen of the West, a tug, and the gunboats Signal and Baron De Kalb, with the fleet following, reconnoitered as Captain Gwin of the Benton sought to clear the river of torpedoes, but on December 24 severe Confederate fire showed the impossibility of removing them. General Sherman reported that by December 27 his force had reached the mouth of the Yazoo in accordance with his promise to General Grant, while Admiral Porter's squadron was also there, and the transports and fleet proceeded up the Yazoo, disembarked on December 27, and fought for three days before suffering repulse by the night of December 29 in the Chickasaw Bayou campaign. During this period, General Martin L. Smith commanded all the defenses of Vicksburg until December 30, Brigadier General Stephen D. Lee commanded the troops from the race course to Snyders Mill during the battle, and Colonel Edward Higgins, commanding Fort Snyder, reported that on December 27 enemy gunboats and a large ironclad engaged the batteries, whose return fire drove the enemy back down the river by about 5 p.m. Fort Snyder mounted fourteen heavy guns, including eight-inch, ten-inch, and seven-and-one-half-inch rifled guns, and was held by the Twenty Second Regiment Louisiana Volunteers, the Third Regiment Mississippi Volunteers, six guns of Company A, First Mississippi Artillery, and the batteries of Captain S.J. Ridley and Captain J.J. Cowan. In March 1863, General Grant wrote of unsuccessful efforts to gain the Yazoo by way of Moon Lake and Yazoo Pass and of another attempt by Admiral Porter and General Sherman through Steeles Bayou, after which he considered an attack on Haynes Bluff, but that attack was not made. Fort Snyder was abandoned on May 19, 1863, to the surrounding army of General Grant.
