Norfolk is an unincorporated community located in Desoto County, Mississippi, United States.

[1] Norfolk began as a steamboat landing on a plantation belonging to a man named Helms.

In 1862, the newly formed Confederate States of America established a customs office there, and all passing vessels were required to stop and provide a list of cargo.

Regarding this action, historian Marion Bragg wrote: Men who had previously been neutral and disinterested in the issues which had aroused others in the North were suddenly enraged.

Free navigation of the Mississippi was a natural birthright of every American, the westerners believed, and they would gladly fight to death for it.