gunboats rather than have them fall into the hands of the enemy. More
welcome visitors he probably never met than the "boys in blue" on this
occasion. The vessels were backed out and returned to their rendezvous
on the Mississippi; and thus ended in failure the fourth attempt to get
in rear of Vicksburg.



CHAPTER XXXII.

THE BAYOUS WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI--CRITICISMS OF THE NORTHERN PRESS
--RUNNING THE BATTERIES--LOSS OF THE INDIANOLA--DISPOSITION OF THE
TROOPS.

The original canal scheme was also abandoned on the 27th of March. The
effort to make a waterway through Lake Providence and the connecting
bayous was abandoned as wholly impracticable about the same time.

At Milliken's Bend, and also at Young's Point, bayous or channels start,
which connecting with other bayous passing Richmond, Louisiana, enter
the Mississippi at Carthage twenty-five or thirty miles above Grand
Gulf. The Mississippi levee cuts the supply of water off from these
bayous or channels, but all the rainfall behind the levee, at these
points, is carried through these same channels to the river below. In
case of a crevasse in this vicinity, the water escaping would find its
outlet through the same channels. The dredges and laborers from the
canal having been driven out by overflow and the enemy's batteries, I
determined to open these other channels, if possible. If successful the
effort would afford a route, away from the enemy's batteries, for our
transports. There was a good road back of the levees, along these