Booknotes: The Yazoo Pass Expedition

New Arrival:
• The Yazoo Pass Expedition: A Union Thrust into the Delta
by Larry Allen McCluney, Jr. (Arcadia Pub & The Hist Pr, 2017).

Ed Bearss and Warren Grabau have given us a pair of tome-sized Vicksburg Campaign histories, and Michael Ballard has authored a concise and well received campaign overview, but the set of book-length standalone battle and sub-operations studies remains limited. Larry Allen McCluney's The Yazoo Pass Expedition: A Union Thrust into the Delta belongs in that last category and is, I believe, the first of its kind.

From the description: "After six failed attempts to reach Vicksburg, General Ulysses S. Grant developed a plan. The Yazoo Pass Expedition was a Union army/navy operation meant to bypass Vicksburg by using the backwaters of the Mississippi Delta. Operations began on February 3, 1863, with a levee breach on the Mississippi River. The expedition was delayed as a result of natural obstacles and Confederate resistance, which allowed the Confederate army under Lieutenant General John Pemberton to block passage of the Federal fleet. The Confederates continued to rebuff the fleet and finally defeated it in the spring."