From three o'clock onward they would be burning rosin and pitch pine(the sign of preparation), and so one had the picturesque spectacleof a rank, some two or three miles long, of tall, ascending columnsof coal-black smoke; a colonnade which supported a sable roof ofthe same smoke blended together and spreading abroad over the city.
Every outward-bound boat had its flag flying at the jack-staff,and sometimes a duplicate on the verge staff astern.
Two or three miles of mates were commanding and swearing with morethan usual emphasis; countless processions of freight barrelsand boxes were spinning athwart the levee and flying aboardthe stage-planks, belated passengers were dodging and skippingamong these frantic things, hoping to reach the forecastlecompanion way alive, but having their doubts about it;women with reticules and bandboxes were trying to keep upwith husbands freighted with carpet-sacks and crying babies,and making a failure of it by losing their heads in the whirland roar and general distraction; drays and baggage-vans wereclattering hither and thither in a wild hurry, every now andthen getting blocked and jammed together, and then during tenseconds one could not see them for the profanity, except vaguelyand dimly; every windlass connected with every forehatch,from one end of that long array of steamboats to the other,was keeping up a deafening whiz and whir, lowering freightinto the hold, and the half-naked crews of perspiring negroesthat worked them were roaring such songs as 'De Las' Sack!
De Las' Sack!'--inspired to unimaginable exaltation by the chaosof turmoil and racket that was driving everybody else mad.
By this time the hurricane and boiler decks of the steamerswould be packed and black with passengers. The 'last bells'
would begin to clang, all down the line, and then the powwowseemed to double; in a moment or two the final warning came,--a simultaneous din of Chinese gongs, with the cry,'All dat ain't goin', please to git asho'! '--and behold,the powwow quadrupled! People came swarming ashore,overturning excited stragglers that were trying to swarm aboard.
One more moment later a long array of stage-planks was beinghauled in, each with its customary latest passenger clingingto the end of it with teeth, nails, and everything else,and the customary latest procrastinator making a wild springshoreward over his head.
Now a number of the boats slide backward into the stream,leaving wide gaps in the serried rank of steamers.
Citizens crowd the decks of boats that are not to go, in orderto see the sight. Steamer after steamer straightens herself up,gathers all her strength, and presently comes swinging by,under a tremendous head of steam, with flag flying,black smoke rolling, and her entire crew of firemen and deck-hands(usually swarthy negroes) massed together on the forecastle,the best 'voice' in the lot towering from the midst(being mounted on the capstan), waving his hat or a flag,and all roaring a mighty chorus, while the parting cannons boomand the multitudinous spectators swing their hats and huzza!
Steamer after steamer falls into line, and the stately procession goeswinging its flight up the river.
In the old times, whenever two fast boats started out on a race,with a big crowd of people looking on, it was inspiring to hearthe crews sing, especially if the time were night-fall, and the forecastlelit up with the red glare of the torch-baskets. Racing was royal fun.
The public always had an idea that racing was dangerous; whereas the oppositewas the case--that is, after the laws were passed which restrictedeach boat to just so many pounds of steam to the square inch.
No engineer was ever sleepy or careless when his heart was in a race.
He was constantly on the alert, trying gauge-cocks and watching things.
The dangerous place was on slow, plodding boats, where the engineers drowsedaround and allowed chips to get into the 'doctor' and shut off the watersupply from the boilers.
In the 'flush times' of steamboating, a race between two notoriouslyfleet steamers was an event of vast importance. The date was setfor it several weeks in advance, and from that time forward, the wholeMississippi Valley was in a state of consuming excitement. Politics andthe weather were dropped, and people talked only of the coming race.
As the time approached, the two steamers 'stripped' and got ready.
Every encumbrance that added weight, or exposed a resisting surfaceto wind or water, was removed, if the boat could possibly do without it.
The 'spars,' and sometimes even their supporting derricks, were sent ashore,and no means left to set the boat afloat in case she got aground.
When the 'Eclipse' and the 'A. L. Shotwell' ran their great race manyyears ago, it was said that pains were taken to scrape the gilding offthe fanciful device which hung between the 'Eclipse's' chimneys, and that forthat one trip the captain left off his kid gloves and had his head shaved.
But I always doubted these things.
If the boat was known to make her best speed when drawing five and a half feetforward and five feet aft, she was carefully loaded to that exact figure--she wouldn't enter a dose of homoeopathic pills on her manifest after that.
Hardly any passengers were taken, because they not only add weight but theynever will 'trim boat.' They always run to the side when there is anythingto see, whereas a conscientious and experienced steamboatman would stick tothe center of the boat and part his hair in the middle with a spirit level.
No way-freights and no way-passengers were allowed, for the racers wouldstop only at the largest towns, and then it would be only 'touch and go.'
Coal flats and wood flats were contracted for beforehand, and these werekept ready to hitch on to the flying steamers at a moment's warning.
Double crews were carried, so that all work could be quickly done.
The chosen date being come, and all things in readiness,the two great steamers back into the stream, and lie therejockeying a moment, and apparently watching each other'sslightest movement, like sentient creatures; flags drooping,the pent steam shrieking through safety-valves, the black smokerolling and tumbling from the chimneys and darkening all the air.
People, people everywhere; the shores, the house-tops,the steamboats, the ships, are packed with them, and you knowthat the borders of the broad Mississippi are going to befringed with humanity thence northward twelve hundred miles,to welcome these racers.
Presently tall columns of steam burst from the 'scape-pipesof both steamers, two guns boom a good-bye, two red-shirted heroesmounted on capstans wave their small flags above the massed crewson the forecastles, two plaintive solos linger on the air a fewwaiting seconds, two mighty choruses burst forth--and here they come!
Brass bands bray Hail Columbia, huzza after huzza thunders fromthe shores, and the stately creatures go whistling by like the wind.
Those boats will never halt a moment between New Orleans and St. Louis,except for a second or two at large towns, or to hitch thirty-cordwood-boats alongside. You should be on board when they take a coupleof those wood-boats in tow and turn a swarm of men into each;by the time you have wiped your glasses and put them on, you will bewondering what has become of that wood.
Two nicely matched steamers will stay in sight of each other day after day.
They might even stay side by side, but for the fact that pilots are notall alike, and the smartest pilots will win the race. If one of the boats hasa 'lightning' pilot, whose 'partner' is a trifle his inferior, you can tellwhich one is on watch by noting whether that boat has gained ground or lostsome during each four-hour stretch. The shrewdest pilot can delay a boatif he has not a fine genius for steering. Steering is a very high art.
One must not keep a rudder dragging across a boat's stem if he wants to get upthe river fast.
There is a great difference in boats, of course. For a long time I was ona boat that was so slow we used to forget what year it was we left port in.
But of course this was at rare intervals. Ferryboats used to losevaluable trips because their passengers grew old and died, waiting for usto get by. This was at still rarer intervals. I had the documentsfor these occurrences, but through carelessness they have been mislaid.
This boat, the 'John J. Roe,' was so slow that when she finally sunkin Madrid Bend, it was five years before the owners heard of it.
That was always a confusing fact to me, but it is according to the record,any way. She was dismally slow; still, we often had prettyexciting times racing with islands, and rafts, and such things.
One trip, however, we did rather well. We went to St. Louis in sixteen days.
But even at this rattling gait I think we changed watches three timesin Fort Adams reach, which is five miles long. A 'reach' is a pieceof straight river, and of course the current drives through such a placein a pretty lively way.
That trip we went to Grand Gulf, from New Orleans, in four days(three hundred and forty miles); the 'Eclipse' and 'Shotwell'
did it in one. We were nine days out, in the chute of 63(seven hundred miles); the 'Eclipse' and 'Shotwell' wentthere in two days. Something over a generation ago,a boat called the 'J. M. White' went from New Orleansto Cairo in three days, six hours, and forty-four minutes.
In 1853 the 'Eclipse' made the same trip in three days,three hours, and twenty minutes.
Some authorities add 1 hour and 16 minutes to this.]> In1870 the 'R. E. Lee' did it in three days and ONE hour.
This last is called the fastest trip on record.
I will try to show that it was not. For this reason:
the distance between New Orleans and Cairo, when the 'J. M. White'
ran it, was about eleven hundred and six miles; consequently heraverage speed was a trifle over fourteen miles per hour.
In the 'Eclipse's' day the distance between the two ports had becomereduced to one thousand and eighty miles; consequently her averagespeed was a shade under fourteen and three-eighths miles per hour.
In the 'R. E. Lee's' time the distance had diminishedto about one thousand and thirty miles; consequently heraverage was about fourteen and one-eighth miles per hour.
Therefore the 'Eclipse's' was conspicuously the fastest time that hasever been made.
THE RECORD OF SOME FAMOUSTRIPS(From Commodore Rollingpin's Almanack.)FAST TIME ON THE WESTERN WATERSFROM NEW ORLEANS TO NATCHEZ--268 MILESD. H. M.
1814 Orleans made the run in 6 6 401814 Comet " " 5 101815 Enterprise " " 4 11 201817 Washington " " 41817 Shelby " " 3 201818 Paragon " " 3 81828 Tecumseh " " 3 1 201834 Tuscarora " " 1 211838 Natchez " " 1 171840 Ed. Shippen " " 1 81842 Belle of the West " 1 181844 Sultana " " 19 451851 Magnolia " " 19 501853 A. L. Shotwell " " 19 491853 Southern Belle " " 20 31853 Princess (No. 4) " 20 261853 Eclipse " " 19 471855 Princess (New) " " 18 531855 Natchez (New) " " 17 301856 Princess (New) " " 17 301870 Natchez " " 17 171870 R. E. Lee " " 17 11FROM NEW ORLEANS TO CAIRO--1,024 MILESD. H. M.
1844 J. M. White made the run in 3 6 441852 Reindeer " " 3 12 451853 Eclipse " " 3 4 41853 A. L. Shotwell " " 3 3 401869 Dexter " " 3 6 201870 Natchez " " 3 4 341870 R. E. Lee " " 3 1FROM NEW ORLEANS TO LOUISVILLE--1,440 MILESD. H. M.
1815 Enterprise made the run in 25 2 401817 Washington " " 251817. Shelby " " 20 4 201818 Paragon " " 18 101828 Tecumseh " " 8 41834 Tuscarora " " 7 161837 Gen. Brown " " 6 221837 Randolph " " 6 221837 Empress " " 6 171837 Sultana " " 6 151840 Ed. Shippen " " 5 141842 Belle of the West " 6 141843 Duke of Orleans" " 5 231844 Sultana " " 5 121849 Bostona " " 5 81851 Belle Key " " 3 4 231852 Reindeer " " 4 20 451852 Eclipse " " 4 191853 A. L. Shotwell " " 4 10 201853 Eclipse " " 4 9 30FROM NEW ORLEANS TO DONALDSONVILLE--78 MILESH. M.
1852 A. L. Shotwell made the run in 5 421852 Eclipse " " 5 421854 Sultana " " 4 511860 Atlantic " " 5 111860 Gen. Quitman " " 5 61865 Ruth " " 4 431870 R. E. Lee " " 4 59FROM NEW ORLEANS TO ST. LOUIS--1,218 MILESD. H. M.
1844 J. M. White made the run in 3 23 91849 Missouri " " 4 191869 Dexter " " 4 91870 Natchez " " 3 21 581870 R. E. Lee " " 3 18 14FROM LOUISVILLE TO CINCINNATI--141 MILESD. H. M.
1819 Gen. Pike made the run in 1 161819 Paragon " " 1 14 201822 Wheeling Packet " " 1 101837 Moselle " " 121843 Duke of Orleans " " 121843 Congress " " 12 201846 Ben Franklin (No. 6) " 11 451852 Alleghaney " " 10 381852 Pittsburgh " " 10 231853 Telegraph No. 3 " " 9 52FROM LOUISVILLE TO ST. LOUIS-750--MILESD. H. M.
1843 Congress made the run in 2 11854 Pike " " 1 231854 Northerner " " 1 22 301855 Southemer " " 1 19FROM CINCINNATI TO PITTSBURGH--490 MILESD. H.
1850 Telegraph No. 2 made the run in 1 171851 Buckeye State " " 1 161852 Pittsburgh " " 1 15FROM ST. LOUIS TO ALTON--30 MILESD. H1853 Altona made the run in 1 351876 Golden Eagle " " 1 371876 War Eagle " " 1 37MISCELLANEOUS RUNSIn June, 1859, the St. Louis and Keokuk Packet, City of Louisiana,made the run from St. Louis to Keokuk (214 miles) in 16 hoursand 20 minutes, the best time on record.
In 1868 the steamer Hawkeye State, of the Northern Packet Company,made the run from St. Louis to St. Paul (800 miles) in 2 days and 20 hours.
Never was beaten.
In 1853 the steamer Polar Star made the run from St. Louis to St. Joseph,on the Missouri River, in 64 hours. In July, 1856, the steamer Jas.
H. Lucas, Andy Wineland, Master, made the same run in 60 hoursand 57 minutes. The distance between the ports is 600 miles,and when the difficulties of navigating the turbulent Missouriare taken into consideration, the performance of the Lucasdeserves especial mention.
THE RUN OF THE ROBERT E. LEEThe time made by the R. E. Lee from New Orleans to St. Louisin 1870, in her famous race with the Natchez, is the beston record, and, inasmuch as the race created a national interest,we give below her time table from port to port.
Left New Orleans, Thursday, June 30th, 1870, at 4 o'clockand 55 minutes, p.m.; reachedD. H. M.
Carrollton 27Harry Hills 1 00Red Church 1 39Bonnet Carre 2 38College Point 3 50Donaldsonville 4 59Plaquemine 7 05Baton Rouge 8 25Bayou Sara 10 26Red River 12 56Stamps 13 56Bryaro 15 51Hinderson's 16 29Natchez 17 11Cole's Creek 19 21Waterproof 18 53Rodney 20 45St. Joseph 21 02Grand Gulf 22 06Hard Times 22 18Half Mile below Warrenton 1Vicksburg 1 38Milliken's Bend 1 2 37Bailey's 1 3 48Lake Providence 1 5 47Greenville 1 10 55Napoleon 1 16 22White River 1 16 56Australia 1 19Helena 1 23 25Half Mile Below St. Francis 2Memphis 2 6 9Foot of Island 37 2 9Foot of Island 26 2 13 30Tow-head, Island 14 2 17 23New Madrid 2 19 50Dry Bar No. 10 2 20 37Foot of Island 8 2 21 25Upper Tow-head--Lucas Bend 3Cairo 3 1St. Louis 3 18 14The Lee landed at St. Louis at 11.25 A.M., on July 4th, 1870--6 hoursand 36 minutes ahead of the Natchez. The officers of the Natchez claimed7 hours and 1 minute stoppage on account of fog and repairing machinery.
The R. E. Lee was commanded by Captain John W. Cannon, and the Natchez was incharge of that veteran Southern boatman, Captain Thomas P. Leathers.
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