Panel #33 Mississippi Riverwalk
A) Young's Point
Mile 443.5 AHP
Before he began digging at Milliken's Bend, General U.S. Grant had tried to build a canal below Young's Point. If successful, the project would have created an artificial cutoff and diverted the river away from Vicksburg, MS. Before the canal was completed, the river rose and flooded the construction site, making further work impossible.
B) Milliken's Bend
Mile 456.0 AHP
Before the U. S. Civil War, Milliken's Bend was a prosperous little community with a busy landing. Early in 1863, General Grant's Army was encamped at Milliken's Bend. Each day they marched 10 miles south to Duckport Landing, where they were digging a canal to allow boats to pass from the Mississippi through several small streams, into the rid River. Grant hoped to use this waterway to move gunboats and troops south for an assault on Vicksburg, thereby avoiding the city's powerful Confederate shore batteries. Just as the canal was finished, the river fell. Low water made the canal useless but opened a dry land route to the south Grand quickly assembled his army and marched them down the west bank past Vicksburg. They crossed the river into the Mississippi at Bruinsburg, south of Grand Gulf, to begin the campaign that needs with Vicksburg's surrender. Shortly after the war, the town of Milliken's Bend was washed away by the river.
C) Omega Landing
Mile 457.1 AHP
The steamer,
Iron Mountain, hit a snag and sank one spring evening upstream from Omega Landing. All aboard escaped safely. The next morning her crew returned to inspect the wreckage, but the boat had disappeared. Months passed with no sign of the vessel's remains When the spring high water fell, the
Iron Mountain has discovered not far away. She had floated through a break in the levee and was sitting intact in the middle of a cotton field, where the receding river had dropped it.
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