In 1862 General Thomas Williams had come up from New Orleans and cut a
ditch ten or twelve feet wide and about as deep, straight across from
Young's Point to the river below. The distance across was a little over
a mile. It was Williams' expectation that when the river rose it would
cut a navigable channel through; but the canal started in an eddy from
both ends, and, of course, it only filled up with water on the rise
without doing any execution in the way of cutting. Mr. Lincoln had
navigated the Mississippi in his younger days and understood well its
tendency to change its channel, in places, from time to time. He set
much store accordingly by this canal. General McClernand had been,
therefore, directed before I went to Young's Point to push the work of
widening and deepening this canal. After my arrival the work was
diligently pushed with about 4,000 men--as many as could be used to
advantage--until interrupted by a sudden rise in the river that broke a
dam at the upper end, which had been put there to keep the water out
until the excavation was completed. This was on the 8th of March.
Even if the canal had proven a success, so far as to be navigable for
steamers, it could not have been of much advantage to us. It runs in a
direction almost perpendicular to the line of bluffs on the opposite
side, or east bank, of the river.
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