32°01′31″N 91°06′29″W / 32.02541°N 91.10804°W Disharoon's Plantation was located in Tensas Parish, Louisiana and was used as a steamboat landing on the Mississippi River by Union Army General Ulysses S. Grant during the American Civil War.
Before the war
editThe place "Disharoon's plantation" was likely so named because it had been the home of an early settler named William Disharoon, who "lived on the Louisiana side, below Grand Gulf," and died July 9, 1839.[1][2] As of 1851 an 800-acre plantation in Tensas, located along the river 13 miles above St. Joe, was still described as the "Disharoon tract."[3]
American Civil War
editDisharoon's Plantation occupied a high natural levee, fronted by a long stretch of steep bank that served as an excellent steamboat landing on the west bank of the Mississippi River approximately 6.5 mi (10.5 km) southwest of Grand Gulf, Mississippi and "three airline miles" south of Hard Times.[4] According to geographer Warren Grabau, Disharoon's had some noted advantages as a staging point, compared to some Mississippi land, which was soggy swamp or impassable forest, namely that it had naturally high levee, and that it had "lots of cleared fields and lots of nice dry ground to camp on".[4] Union Maj. Gen. John A. McClernand's XII Corps of the Army of the Tennessee occupied the plantation on April 29, 1863, after marching across the base of Coffee Point from Hard Times Plantation.[clarification needed] Grant arrived at the plantation near dark on that evening, and made plans to land his forces on the Mississippi shore at Rodney, Mississippi, another 12 mi (19 km) downstream. Late that night an escaped slave informed him that there was an excellent steamboat landing, plus good roads into the interior, at Bruinsburg Landing, only 5 mi (8.0 km) downstream. Grant decided to land in Mississippi at Bruinsburg.
Destruction
editDisharoon's Plantation was destroyed by Mississippi River flood waters shortly after the Civil War.
References
edit- ^ "Died". Vicksburg Tri-Weekly Sentinel. 1839-07-14. p. 2. Retrieved 2024-07-04.
- ^ "Valuable Plantation in Louisiana for Sale". The Mississippi Free Trader. 1840-10-19. p. 3. Retrieved 2024-07-04.
- ^ "Levee Tax Collectors Sale". The Concordia Intelligencer. 1851-03-01. p. 1. Retrieved 2024-07-04.
- ^ a b Grabau (2000), p. 143.
- Grabau, Warren (2000). Ninety-Eight Days: A Geographer's View of the Vicksburg Campaign. Knoxville, Tennessee: University of Tennessee Press. ISBN 9781572330689. OCLC 1359089503.
- Steven E. Woodworth; Charles D Grear (8 October 2013). The Vicksburg Campaign, March 29-May 18, 1863. Southern Illinois University Press. pp. 52–. ISBN 978-0-8093-3270-0.
- Emilye Crosby (2005). A Little Taste of Freedom: The Black Freedom Struggle in Claiborne County, Mississippi. Univ of North Carolina Press. pp. 18–. ISBN 978-0-8078-2965-3.
- Myron J. Smith Jr. (8 April 2010). The USS Carondelet: A Civil War Ironclad on Western Waters. McFarland. pp. 172–. ISBN 978-0-7864-5609-3.
External links
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This article incorporates public domain material from the National Park Service[permanent dead link]
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