PASSING ISLAND NUMBER 10

On this day the flotilla carrying Col. John F. DeCourcey's troops, having spent the night on the Mississippi River docked at Columbus, Kentucky, resumed their southbound voyage toward Memphis, Tennessee, at 10:00am. We currently have no detailed information on exactly where the fleet stopped for the days of November 24 and 25, so we will approximate their positions, knowing their eventual arrival at Memphis was on the night of November 26.

Of this portion on the trip south, past Columbus, Cpl. Theodore Wolbach writes:

Island No. 10, furrowed and studded with rifle-pits and tents, lay quiet and peaceful in the broad river. Just back of the river shore, to the west (actually to the north), in the low marshy lands, is where Gen. Pope's forces cut a way for the steamboats when the country was inundated during the siege of the Island in the spring. Some partially submerged hulls of transports stuck in the mud at the lower end of the Island. ...

* Information and italicized quotations from a series of articles entitled Camp and Field - The Old 16th Ohio, written in the 1880s by Theodore Wolbach, late Corporal in Company E, 16th Ohio Volunteer Infantry.

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A sketch of Island No. 10 on the Mississippi River, near New Madrid and Point Pleasant, Missouri

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Wide view modern day map of the 16th Ohio's journey on the Ohio River from Columbus, Kentucky to a point opposite Island #10 on the Mississippi River, 60 miles down river from Columbus (positions approximated):

Blue pin - New Albany, Indiana (near Louisville, Kentucky)
Green pin - notional point where the flotilla anchored for the night on November 19, 1862
Red pin - Cannelton, Indiana, where flotilla docked to take on coal on what may have been the night of November 20, 1862
Lavender pin - notional point where the flotilla reached on the night of November 21, 1862
Yellow pin - notional point where the flotilla reached on the night of November 22, 1862
Aqua pin - Cairo, Illinois
Purple pin - Columbus, Kentucky
Green pushpin - notional point where the flotilla reached on the night of November 24, 1862 (60 miles from Columbus, Kentucky)

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Excellent map of the area around Island No. 10, where the Union battled the Confederates and won control of the critical island on April 8, 1862, opening the Mississippi River for navigation to Union ships. Cpl. Wolbach describes the event, above, as the troops passed the place on their journey to Memphis on November 24, 1862.