So an army engineer conceived the idea of
turning the river around the rear of the army. Accordingly, a canal
was cut across the loop, in order to make an artificial channel
through which its current might run. But the river steadfastly refused
to accept any channel it had not itself made, and the ditch soon
silted up. Twelve years or more afterward there was trouble; for the
river, which had all this time so persistently ignored the canal, one
stormy night, when its current was considerably swollen, took a notion
to adopt the canal that it had so long refused. Next morning the good
people of Vicksburg woke to find their metropolis, not on the river
channel, but practically an inland town overlooking a stagnant mud
flat. The town of Delta, which, the night before, was three miles
below Vicksburg, was, in the morning, two miles above it. Since that
time, energy and intelligence have conspired in its behalf, and
Vicksburg is still an important river port; but the channel of the
river is persistent, and constant effort and watchfulness alone keep a
depth of water sufficient for the needs of navigation before the
wharves.
The average inhabitant of the flood plain of the Mississippi is not
surprised at this capriciousness of the river, for long experience has
taught him to look for it.
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