Floods

Tom Hughes

Sergeant Major
Joined
May 27, 2019
Location
Mississippi
Down here in Mississippi, we are dealing with some pretty major flooding affecting the Mississippi river, Big Black river, and Yazoo rivers to name some of the major ones.
During the civil war, you didn't hear much about the troop encampments being flooded, even though the levees were only 3 ft. high.
During the Vicksburg campaign, the springs rains did affect Grant's canal digging, however.
Anybody got any stories about U.S. or Confederate troops being affected by flood waters during their campaigns or if any engagements were affected by flood waters?
 
Down here in Mississippi, we are dealing with some pretty major flooding affecting the Mississippi river, Big Black river, and Yazoo rivers to name some of the major ones.
During the civil war, you didn't hear much about the troop encampments being flooded, even though the levees were only 3 ft. high.
During the Vicksburg campaign, the springs rains did affect Grant's canal digging, however.
Anybody got any stories about U.S. or Confederate troops being affected by flood waters during their campaigns or if any engagements were affected by flood waters?
Here I am replying to my own thread....But I recently did read where some Union soldiers in April of 1863 were caught by flood waters on the Mississippi at Duckport, LA, just south of Milliken's Bend. They said they woke up with water creeping into their tent and soon they were sleeping on top of the levy surrounded by a lake of water.
 
I believe it was when General Thomas was in charge of Eastport and Waterloo, both being supply depots and troop encampments in 1865 (?). I remember reading of the flooding out of that area, right near the time when they were supposed to be moving south. The spring freshets that year, after a terrible winter were severe. The whole encampment had to be moved back above flood stage, and I believe much sustenance was lost in the immediacy of flooding.
Lubliner.
 
Gen Wilson's camps in Eastport & Gravelly Springs were way up on the mountain but the camps down on the river where the supply boats came in got flooded out. In fact Wilson had to delay his departure by several weeks due to the heavy rains. Right now this Confederate is having flood issues as I had to evac to the house in Bham. This table is 75 feet from my front door. The river should be 40 feet beyond the table.
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Gen Wilson's camps in Eastport & Gravelly Springs were way up on the mountain but the camps down on the river where the supply boats came in got flooded out. In fact Wilson had to delay his departure by several weeks due to the heavy rains. Right now this Confederate is having flood issues as I had to evac to the house in Bham. This table is 75 feet from my front door. The river should be 40 feet beyond the table.
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oh my!!! Are you taking water in your house in Demopolis?
Are you relic hunting fields underwater? Mine are all flooded out.
 
I don't know as I left before it got to high as it floods the road and you can't get out, learned that a few years ago. It came up so quick I had to wade in to rescue the Lost Cause cannon. Here are a few from that one. You can see that table between the wheel spokes. I'm at the house in Bham. I'm sure the camps are underwater but right now "Jimmy Cracked Corn" When I left 2 days ago that table was almost underwater which it is now.
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Grant's encampments on the Western bank of the river above Vicksburg were greatly affected by flooding. In one of the epic events of the war, the army retreated to the tops of levies. Movement was along the meandering berms built up by local planters. The sheer dogged determination it took to just hang on until they could get across the river defies description.
 
The biggest problem Grant had with his camps on the west bank was the mosquito. I have relic hunted in many of the CW camps on the east & west bank and I'm sure @Tom Hughes will second this. There is only a small window to hunt there. After the winter & spring floods they plant the cotton, they don't harvest till fall, then you got deer season.
 
The biggest problem Grant had with his camps on the west bank was the mosquito. I have relic hunted in many of the CW camps on the east & west bank and I'm sure @Tom Hughes will second this. There is only a small window to hunt there. After the winter & spring floods they plant the cotton, they don't harvest till fall, then you got deer season.
Very true. There's like a 6 week window then it's all over for the relic hunting season! The flooding has all but ruined the hunting over by the river this year. I'm just hoping the planting season will be delayed.
 
Right now this Confederate is having flood issues as I had to evac to the house in Bham. This table is 75 feet from my front door. The river should be 40 feet beyond the table.
Again? Sorry my friend.
 
The 2nd Regiment Alabama Cavalry, while performing partisan ranger service throughout the Florida Panhandle, from 8 May 1862 - 5 April 1863, recorded several times that they had to move their camps specifically because of flooding. In some areas of the camps, located on the Escambia river, the water had risen to being waist high, leaving most of the boards of some tent floors to float away.

In a letter written on 16 Sep 1862 by Pvt. Hardin Perkins Cochrane, Company "D", 2nd Regiment Alabama Cavalry, to his sister Louise he writes about the state of affairs for the rest of the regiment back at Bluff Springs / Camp Lee:

"It has been raining almost incessantly for three days. We have been kept in our tent without even the opportunity of cooking our provisions. We only ate two meals yesterday and today we ate our breakfast at twelve o`clock (noon). It has just cleared off and I suppose we will have a chance to get dry now, a luxury which we have not enjoyed in some time. Our tent leaked a great deal and this morning there was scarcely a dry plank in our tent floor. It rained on us so much in the night that it kept us awake a good part of the time in avoiding the drips.

The worst of it was that nearly half of the regiment was under water. Our company ("D") is in the center and a company on our right and all on our left are all over-flowed. The men are now moving out. The water is knee-deep almost anywhere in the submerged companies, and waist-deep in some places. You ought to have seen the men wading out from their tents. The floors of most of them were floating. Some were surprised in the night by the water coming over their floors.

In our commissary tent the water was half way up the barrels. The commissary (Sgt.) was sleeping in a cot but when the water got nearly in it he left it and got up in a sort of a "hack" or "carry all we have". There he stayed until the flood abated a little. Our tent is on higher grounds than the Captain`s for the waters lacked only a few inches of getting in the Captain`s. Lt. Jemison said that the only thing that kept him from thinking that we would have another flood was the promise of the scriptures (Noah`s flood). It did look like it would never stop, for it did not rain awhile and stop like it does at home but when once started it did not stop until it had finished."
 
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No pictures to offer, but in January 1865, the southeastern states suffered major flooding from a severe rain storm. The river south from Augusta flooded to such an extent that Sherman delayed his departure north into South Carolina until the water level fell. Much of Augusta flooded; the railroads in up state South Carolina all suffered severely. The North Carolina RR had severe damage. The Piedmont and Richmond & Danville RRs were both put out of commission for several weeks -- wagon trains were put into action to feed Richmond and Lee.
 
Don't know if it produced floods that effected the battle,but the Battle Of Bayou Fordoche aka the Battle Of Sterling's Plantation in Louisiana was fought on September 29,1863 in a Category 1 hurricane. Can't help but think that floodwaters effected a battle(s) in Louisiana at some point in the war.
 
Historic flooding down here in Mississippi.
The Big Black river has inundated the fields that was a battleground on May 17, 1863 of Grant's Vicksburg campaign.
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This field was the scene of Lawler's attack on the Confederate defensive works. It now looks like a lake.

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Water rushes under the concrete bridge that runs parallel to the Old Jackson Road that once ran through the heart of the battlefield.

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Picture taken from the bridge spanning the swollen river. Hard to tell the river from the field in the background.
 
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