So Much Fascinating History So Close to Home

 

I live in a state that borders the Mississippi River. I've crossed the river several times traveling to and fro on family trips. I probably will cross it again at some point, maybe multiple times. But I will never look at it the way I did before reading Lee Sandlin's history of the river during the antebellum period in this country - Wicked River: The Mississippi When It Last Ran Wild.

This was a fascinating book. I know a history class can't cover everything that happens, but there were several major events in this book that I'd never heard of (or only vaguely). For example, there's an account of the wreck of the steamboat Sultana - the worst maritime disaster in U.S. history. I'd heard the name before, but had no idea how awful it was. Sandlin does a good job conveying the horror. There's information about the New Madrid earthquake, as well as the siege of Vicksburg that was a key to the Union victory in the Civil War. One thing that struck me as I was reading was how the river was at the heart of some of the major events in the country's history.

But one thing I really appreciated was learning about some things I'd never heard of. There was an interesting chapter about New Orleans and the slave auctions, including prices ("girls" for sexual uses were the most expensive slaves, costing up to $5,000). One of the chapters that was especially eye-opening was about a multi-year scare over a possible slave revolt that resulted from what was basically a scam to sell a book. The unfounded fears the book started snowballed into a purge of anyone, black or white, who was even remotely rumored to know something about a revolt. Sometimes just being asked questions was enough to get someone lynched, whether there was any basis to the suspicion. One of the stories Sandlin told was of a slave owner who was ordered to flog one of his slaves who was accused (falsely) of being involved with the (nonexistent) revolt. The owner refused. The "investigators" said they would flog the slave owner instead. So he began to beat the slave, but he wasn't hitting the slave hard enough to suit the "investigators." They hung both men. Some things about that whole incident sounded pretty contemporary; as Sandlin observed, "One reason people were so quick to believe in the Murrell excitement was that they were eager to believe in anything, no matter how strange, as long as it was bad news" (p. 232).

Overall, this was a great read - full of interesting information and written in a compelling style. I thought it was kind of funny, though, that the last chapter fell kind of flat compared to the rest of the book. That seemed fitting, though, because after the Civil War, government engineers began to tame the river through dredging and levees, and railroads began to carry a lot of the people and goods that once depended on the water "highway." The Big River was no longer wild and no longer as big a deal.