Anchoring the Confederate left flank on the Mississippi River, its guns
commanded the Union right as well as the river. The flags of England,
France, Spain, the United States, and the Confederate States have flown
over this historic site, where the bluffs meet the river, during the
centuries-old struggle for control of the Mississippi. Fort Nogales
(Spanish) was built here in 1791, and Fort McHenry, 1798, was the first
American settlement at Vicksburg. The water below the fort is not the
Mississippi River--it changed its course in 1876--but the Yazoo
Diversion Canal, bringing the Yazoo water into the old bed of the
Mississippi.