Sunflower Cutoff/Jackson Cutoff

Sunflower Cutoff/Jackson Cutoff. Mississippi River Walk. , A) Sunflower Cutoff , Mile 625.0 AHP, Sunflower Cutoff, opened by the Corps of Engineers in 1942, removed Sunflower Bend from the river. The bend had been a Confederate ambush site during the U.S. Civil War. The Confederates maintained two artillery pieces at the head of the bend. They would bombard Union boats coming downriver, then rush across the narrow neck of land and shell them again after they had rounded the 20-mile bend. In the 1930s a government commission named Sunflower Bend as the place where Hernando DeSoto first saw the Mississippi River. Later archeological studies have proven this unlikely., B) Jackson Cutoff , Mile 627.0 AHP, One of a series of cutoffs constructed by the Corps of Engineers after 1933, Jackson Cutoff opened in 1941. In December 1845, an overloaded steamboat ran aground on Island No. 65, which then lay in the Jackson Bend channel. To lighten the boat so it could be dislodged, the captain asked 100 German immigrant passengers to disembark and walk across Jackson point to be picked up above the bend. When the boat was again underway, the captain cured his overload problem by streaming up river, leaving the Germans standing on the bank. They were rescued by a later steamer. The steamboat, Martha Washington, caught fire and sank in Jackson Bend in 1852. Several passengers died and the entire cargo was lost. Later, salvage divers discovered that the heavily insured cargo consisted of crates filled with bricks and stones. A number of people were arrested for fraud, arson, and murder, but the evidence was inadequate for conviction.