Three miles west of Greenwood lies Fort Pemberton, the only fort on the Yazoo River to resist the attack of Union forces during the Civil War. A model of the March 1863 battle at Fort Pemberton can be found at Greenwood’s Cottonlandia Museum

Interesting facts about the battle at Fort Pemberton: The fort’s hasty construction of cotton bales covered with earth was ordered by Confederate General John C. Pemberton to block General Ulysses S. Grant’s effort to send a fleet to Vicksburg from the rear. It was located on the embankment stretching approximately 300 yards from the Tallahatchie River to the Yazoo River and its outline can still be seen. To further impede the enemy, Major General William W. Loring ordered the famous steamship “Star of the West” — which received the first shots of the Civil War at Fort Sumter on Jan. 9, 1861 — to be sunk in a channel of the Tallahatchie.

The “Star of the West” can still be seen in the river when the waters are low. Union forces retreated to the Mississippi River.