Adam Badeau, Military history of Ulysses S. Grant from April 1861 to April 1865. Volume 1

[159] from above and below, for a distance of long cannon-range. The bluffs extend along the eastern bank for nearly twenty miles. From Walnut hills to Warrenton the Mississippi washes the foot of the range. At few places is the interval between the river and the bluff more than six hundred yards; and at the point where Vicksburg stands, the cliffs rise abruptly from the water's edge two hundred feet.

Above the town the hills turn to the northeast; the point where the range strikes the Yazoo nearly twenty miles from its mouth is known as Haine's bluff, and was the extreme right of the rebel line. It is very precipitous, and completely commands the navigation of the Yazoo, as well as the opposite shore. So long as this position was held by the rebels, Vicksburg could not be approached from the north. From Haine's bluff, which is twelve miles above the town, to the Mississippi, the highlands were completely and thoroughly fortified, and thence along down, till they recede from the river, at Warrenton, seven miles below. Twenty-eight guns of heavy calibre were mounted on the river front, all of which had a plunging fire; they effectually barred all progress by the stream, for no gun in the squadron could be sufficiently elevated to be formidable to batteries crowning cliffs two and three hundred feet high.

At the foot of the ridge, and along the slopes, rifle-pits were dug, that commanded the strip of swamp land which sometimes intervenes between the river and the bluffs. The Louisiana shore is swampy, and impracticable for the transportation or occupation of troops. Rafts were moored, chains were stretched across the Yazoo, to detain vessels under