The New Student's Reference Work/Yazoo

Yazoo', a river of Mississippi formed by the union of the Tallahatchie and the Yallobusha, runs southwestward in a very serpentine course in a deep, narrow, sluggish channel — its length being about 300 miles — and empties into the Mississippi, ten or 12 miles above Vicksburg. In the winter of 1863-64 General William T. Sherman sailed up the Yazoo with a considerable military force for the purpose of capturing the fortified position of Haines' Bluff from the Confederates, preparatory to an attack on Vicksburg. The expedition was unsuccessful.