Phil Scott
Description
Celestial Reflections in the Tallahatchie River describes the exciting events surrounding the sidewheel steamship Star of the West. The steamship had
...
gained fame when South Carolina's Citadel Cadets targeted her with the first shots of the War Between the States, in January of 1861.
The story begins in the Mississippi Delta during the pioneering days of the mid-19th century, when Joshua Thompson immigrated with his family into the region and settled in the wilderness. He matured and married Jenny Delacroix, who was the daughter of a Delta plantation owner. The couple soon had a daughter, Sophie, and the three of them settled on their small farm alongside the Tallahatchie River.
When the Civil War erupted in 1861, Joshua joined up with a local Confederate regiment, and he and his Rebel comrades began a series of maneuvers around the Southeast. In March of 1863, the Confederate command ordered his regiment to trek to Greenwood, Mississippi -- Joshua's hometown -- to construct defensive forts on the bank of the Tallahatchie River. Their objective was to halt the advancement of a flotilla of Union gunships and troop transports that were steaming toward Greenwood. General Ulysses Grant had ordered the flotilla to traverse the length of the river, enter the Yazoo River at Greenwood and then cruise toward the river's mouth, where they could lay siege to, and ultimately conquer, Vicksburg: the final Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River. The Rebels scuttled the Star of the West in the Tallahatchie River as an obstruction, and after many battles, the Rebels turned back the Yankees.
Joshua lost a treasure in the scuttled Star of the West, and one-and-a-half centuries into the future, his descendant would ultimately lead an archaeological expedition to excavate the sunken ship. The discovery of the lost treasure would intrigue the world.
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