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In 1876, the Mississippi River changed course to cut across De Soto Point, eventually isolating Vicksburg from the river, but the completion of the Yazoo Diversion Canal in 1903 restored Vicksburg's river access. Most of the canal site has since been destroyed by agriculture, but a small section survives.
The Mississippi River [b] is the primary river of the largest drainage basin in the United States. [c] [15] [16] From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it flows generally south for 2,340 miles (3,766 km) [16] to the Mississippi River Delta in the Gulf of Mexico.
The town is approximately 32 miles (51 km) northeast of Natchez and is currently about two miles (3.2 km) inland from the Mississippi River. Wetlands between the town and the river include a lake that roughly follows the river's former course. Atop the loess bluffs behind Rodney are its cemetery and Confederate earthworks from the Civil War.
Bayou Teche was the Mississippi River's main course when it developed a delta about 2,800 to 4,500 years ago. Through a natural process known as deltaic switching , the river's deposits of silt and sediment cause the Mississippi to change its course every thousand years or so.
The L.A. River and the Mississippi River both drop approximately the same distance — 800 and 600 feet, respectively — from top to bottom, but the Mississippi takes a leisurely 2,000-plus miles ...
The Yazoo then flows 188 miles (303 km), to reenter the Mississippi a short distance above Vicksburg. This changed in 1856, however, when the coming of the railroad induced the state to drain some of the land for agricultural uses. To that end, they built artificial levees to confine the river to its main course.
Steele's Bayou ran roughly parallel to the Mississippi, as seen on this map of the area produced shortly after the war. The expedition was very much limited by the geography of the Mississippi Delta, the flood plain of the river occupying most of northwestern Mississippi. The land is quite low and is in fact lower in many places than the river.
The Mississippi River was an important military highway that bordered ten states, roughly equally divided between Union and Confederate loyalties. Both sides soon realised that control of the river was a crucial strategic priority. Confederate general Braxton Bragg said "The river is of more importance to us than all the country together."