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

[170] cables, while a few of the most buoyant were cut in pieces and fastened along the banks. To add to the difficulties, the rapid rise of the water, from the crevasse at the entrance, submerged the entire country, except along a very narrow strip of land near the shore. The men, in parties of about five hundred, were thus obliged to work in the water, as well as during almost incessant rains. The barriers, however, being removed, and a heavy growth of overhanging timber cut away, the distance from Moon lake to the Coldwater was finally cleared. But, while Grant's forces were thus diligently engaged in opening one end of the pass, the enemy had gained time to securely fortify below.

On the 15th of February, however, a way was open to the Tallahatchie, and Brigadier-General Ross, with forty-five hundred men, was ordered into the pass. He embarked on twenty-two light transports, preceded by two iron-clad gunboats, and a mosquito fleet, as the light-armored craft suitable for this navigation was called. Lieutenant-Commander Watson Smith commanded the naval force. The difficulty of procuring light transports delayed Ross over a week. but the combined fleet entered the pass on the 24th of February, and reached the Coldwater, twenty-five miles from the Mississippi, on the 2d of March. The Coldwater is over a hundred feet wide, and runs through a dense wilderness, for nearly all its course. The Tallahatchie is a stream of similar nature, and, from its width and depth, no longer susceptible of obstruction by the enemy. Thirty miles below the mouth of the Coldwater, the Tallahatchie affords free navigation for boats two hundred and fifty feet long. When once the expedition reached these rivers, a great