March 10, 1865: "Very Narrow and Torturous With a Strong Current"

One of Lt.Cmdr. Young's gunboats had noted that upriver "the stream is very narrow and torturous, with a strong current.  Finding that I could not make the turns without using hawsers, and then fouling paddle boxes and smokestack in the branches of large trees, I concluded to return.

"The people, black and white, whom I questioned, state that the Chickamauga is sunk across the stream at Indian Wells, with a chain just below.  Her two guns are on a bluff on the western bank of the river."

Operating conditions on these low, shallow rivers, often backed by swamp and forest, had many similarities with those encountered 100 years later in South Vietnam by the U.S. Navy Advisory group.

--Old B-R'er