THE ASSOCIATED PRESS AUG 31 2007

BELZONI, Miss. -- A curious history buff may have found a Civil War-era vessel in the Yazoo River.

Bob Harston of Silver City, Mississippi, said he's heard stories about the Confederate vessel in the river for years.

This week, near drought conditions left the water level so low that a boat was visible in the river bottom.

Harston called Vicksburg National Military Park historian Terry Winschel, who traveled to the site Monday with an archaeologist with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The experts spotted what appeared to be a sidewheeler packet vessel, used by Confederate troops to navigate narrow channels.

A pitman arm, used to crank the wheel, was visible in the mud and silt.

Winschel says the vessel was the fifth in a series of seven boats of the same name, all owned by Thomas P. Leathers of Vicksburg.

This one was the Natchez Number 5.

It was reportedly used by Jefferson Davis when he traveled in 1861 to Montgomery, where he was sworn in as president of the Confederate States of America.