s from the former
of these, but having more troops than could be employed to
advantage at Young's Point, and knowing that Lake Providence was
connected by Bayou Baxter with Bayou Macon, a navigable stream
through which transports might pass into the Mississippi below,
through Tensas, Wachita, and Red rivers, I thought it possible
that a route might be opened in that direction which would enable
me to co-operate with General Banks at Port Hudson.

By the Yazoo Pass route I only expected at first to get into the
Yazoo by way of Coldwater and Tallahatchie with some lighter
gunboats and a few troops and destroy the enemy's transports in
that stream and some gunboats which I knew he was building. The
navigation, however, proved so much better than had been expected
that I thought for a time of the possibility of making this the
route for obtaining a foothold on high land above Haines Bluff,
Mississippi, and small class steamers were accordingly ordered
for transporting an army that way. Major-General J. B. McPherson,
commanding seventeenth army corps, was directed to have his corps
in readiness to move by this route; and one division from each
the thirteenth and fifteenth corps were collected near the
entrance of the Pass to be added to his command. It soon became
evident that a sufficient number of boats of the right class
could not be obtained for the movement of more than one division.

Whilst my forces were opening one end of the Pass the enemy was
diligently closing the other end, and in this way succeeded in
gaining time to strongly fortify Greenwood, below the junction of
the Tallahatchie and Yallobusha. The advance of the expedition,
consisting of one division of McClernand's corps from Helena,
commanded by Brigadier-General L. F. Ross, and the 12th and 17th
regiments of Missouri infantry, from Sherman's corps, as (p. 377)
sharpshooters on the gunboats, succeeded in reaching Coldwater
on the 2d day of March, after much difficulty, and the partial
disabling of most of the boats. From the entrance into Coldwater
to Fort Pemberton, at Greenwood, Mississippi, no great difficulty
of navigation was experienced nor any interruption of magnitude
from the enemy. Fort Pemberton extends from the Tallahatchie to
the Yazoo at Greenwood. Here the t