... channel and made the formidable obstructions a mile south of the Bluff, where the Confederates soon built Battery Dantzler. The river, however, was so crooked that two miles below Trent's Reach at Dutch Gap , only 174 yards separated the lower river from the upper. If the Federals could cut through this neck, they could avoid the Confederate works and move on up the river by boat as far as the works at...