The Star that fell on the delta By Jim Fraiser Most every boy growing up in the Mississippi Delta remembers plumbing the depths of their hometown streams, the rivers that were as prominent in the Delta as bulging blood vessels on a weight-lifter's arms. At one time, they were no less than the lifes blood of that cotton-rich alluvial plain, until the Northern industrialist's railroad consigned the southern planter's steamboat to entrepreneurial extinction. The principal stream of my childhood was the oak-lined Tallahatchie, which joins the Yalobusha near downtown Greenwood to form a river with the extraordinary name of Yazoo. My north Greenwood backyard ended where the Tallahatchie's southern shore began, and my buddies and I made like Hernando DeSoto and Jim Bowie every chance we got, seeking our fortunes exploring our stream's vine-covered banks and tussling on its mussel-flecked sandbars for the honor of being the first of the day to make Bobbie Gentry's myth a reality and leap off the nearby Tallahatchie Bridge. But the biggest mission we ever undertook was to make the five mile western trek to the Civil War battle site which was located on that stream's south bank a few miles west of Greenwood. There at Fort Pemberton, we hiked exactly 300 more feet along the shore, and then slipped beneath the river's brown, silt-laden surface in search of the remains of that ill-fated vessel, Star of the West, which was sunk in 1863 by "our" valiant Confederate boys while defending our besieged homeland against invading Yankee marauders. I say "ill-fated," because this ship failed to relieve Fort Sumter when President Lincoln sent it to Carolina for that purpose on January 9, 1860. It was captured shortly thereafter on the Texas shore line by Confederate General Earl Van Dorn, who tricked a vastly superior Yankee force into surrendering their ship without a shot, and was then scuttled by Confederate forces to block the Union fleet's attempted backdoor invasion of Vicksburg. Ill-fated or not, to me and my childhood companions, she was the great star which fell upon the Delta, whose flaming demise still fueled our imaginations exactly one century to the day after Rebel soldiers pulled her plugs and began her final descent beneath the waves. Originally commissioned as a merchant vessel servicing trade between New York City and Apsinwall, the Star of the West was built by Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt in 1861 at a cost of $250,000. She was originally a 1,172 ton, 32 foot wide, 24 foot deep brigantine-rigged side-wheeler capable of traveling at a speed of no more than 11.5 knots. Confederates renamed her the C.S.S. St. Phillip, and armed her in New Orleans with two 68-pounder and four 32-pounder guns, and shortened her two masts for inland river operation. Desperate for weaponry, they removed those guns before sinking her at Fort Pemberton on March 11, 1863, at 10:00 am. The sinking was precipitated by General Grant's decision to approach Vicksburg via a route along the Tallahatchie which began in Grenada and was to end at the Mississippi. Warned by southern spies of the flotilla's progression into Moon Lake, CSA General William W. Loring, a few civil engineers, two hundred slaves, and fifteen hundred civilians hastily constructed a breastwork of logs, fence rails, sandbags and cotton bales on a patch of land three miles below Greenwood. The spot was chosen because it overlooked a bend in the Tallahatchie where the river was wide enough to accommodate but one boat at a time. Three hundred yards upriver from the hastily erected and newly christened Fort Pemberton, the Confederates positioned the Star of the West in midstream. Her captain, Lieutenant A.A. Stoddard, ordered the crew to drill 250 holes in her below-water hull and plug them with oak bungs. Then they waited for Grant's Confederacy-threatening armada to arrive. When the Union fleet, under the command of General L.R. Ross, appeared on the river a few miles upstream, Confederates pulled the ship's plugs and sent her to the bottom, her masts still protruding ominously above the Tallahatchie's surface. When the Federals attacked, Rebel sharpshooters and their lone cannon treated their opponents to a frightful, hot-shell reception. As one Confederate later reported, the Yanks "met with such a warm reception from our cannon planted along the south bank of the Tallahatchie...that they were glad to retire." But the Federals returned on the 13th and an all day battle ensued. "Give `em the blizzards, boys," shouted General Loring, and his men rained hell down upon the Union fleet. Unable to land his men because of springtime flooding, Ross again retreated. On March 16, the Federals returned for one more battle, but within twenty short minutes, Confederate lead incapacitated the Union gunboat, Chillicothe and claimed 31 Union casualties. The victorious Rebels suffered less than a dozen dead and wounded. When apprized of the stunning Confederate victory at Greenwood, Grant abandoned his backside approach to Vicksburg and made plans to take Vicksburg by land. Through the years, the Star's upper hull could be seen languishing above the river's waves every spring, but those boards were eventually removed by treasure-seeking history lovers and safety-conscious pleasure boaters. Only the lower section remained to haunt the river bottom and entice young boys such as my pals and myself to brave a surprisingly swift current, ever-patrolling cotton-mouths, ubiquitous alligator gars and almost certain parental rebuke, solely for the pleasure of touching the Star of the West's hallowed hull. As I recall, the diving part of the excursion lasted no longer than a skyscraper elevator ride, although the debate over whether the souvenirs dredged up off the bottom were remains of logs, cotton crates, or the Star of the West's hull often raged for the four or five hours we spent hiking down Highway 82 and the venerable Grand Boulevard toward our homes on Robert E. Lee Drive. While countless others squandered precious hours of their youth aimlessly gazing at unreachable stars, I spent a treasured part of mine seeking the sunken remains of history, of a fallen Star that always remained a few inches outside my grasp. I seek that fallen star still, in the constellation of my imagination, where she shines as brightly as she did during my youth, sparkling brilliantly alongside Chief Greenwood Leflore's vanished Malmaison, the long silenced guns of Fort Pemberton, and the elusive grave of bluesman Robert Johnson. An old southern gentleman once told me that I would never see the stars so clearly anywhere else in the world as I would while lying flat on my back in a barren Delta cotton field. As I reflect upon my childhood experiences in the legend-drenched Mississippi Delta, I fancy now that I understand what he meant. <...HOME...>