Read Online The Great American Steamboat Race by Benton Rain Patterson - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Benton Rain Patterson
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flying trip.
Up to and beyond Plaquemine men and boys in skiffs came out almost in our track to hail us with warm welcome and get a word, if possible, with one of the officers or crew. This is but a moment. They are struck by the swells and dashed and rocked away off towards the shore, far in our wake. As long as they are in sight they wave us adieu. The inhabitants all appear to live out of doors, or are crowded in the windows or on the housetops as we approach. The most lively interest is depicted in every countenance and is uttered in every voice.
At Baton Rouge, which we reached about 1 o’clock, this morning, there were still people on the wharf, but silence had nearly been restored on shore, and during the rest of the night nothing was to be noted but the still, anxious groups on board. 6
By the time the sun had risen on the new day, the Robert E. Lee was pulling farther ahead, and its unsleeping captain, unable to shake his worry over the boat’s machinery, went down into the engine room and asked Perkins to slow down, telling him they were well in front of the Natchez , that there was no need to run at full speed. Perkins replied that it wasn’t the Natchez he was thinking of. Rather it was the speed record for a trip from New Orleans to Natchez, which had been set by Leathers’s fourth Princess in 1856 and which he intended to beat. The Lee ’s chief engineer was not concerned about the boat’s performance so far, and Cannon, apparently reassured, returned to his post on the upper deck.
On board the Natchez, another reporter from the St. Louis Republican , offering a different perspective of the race, observed that “The captain [Tom Leathers] is sleepless on deck, the pilots are nervous yet confident at the wheel, the engineers stand by their engines watching every movement of the machinery, and the firemen work like Trojans, and look like demons in the red glare of the furnaces.” 7 The anonymous reporter took time to notice the spectacle of the steamer racing through the darkness, “cleaving the river wide open,” as he put it. “The effect at night is simply grand,” he wrote. “The steamer plows on her watery way, puffing white clouds and streaming a constant current of fiery sparks from her chimney tops, bounded by blackness on either side. But the people on shore are sleepless, too, and send their greetings through the darkness as we pass.” 8
Leathers had been given a gold pocket watch as a trophy for his recordbreaking run from New Orleans to St. Louis less than two weeks earlier, when he had made the trip in three days, twenty-two hours and forty-five minutes, mere minutes faster than the old J.M. White had made it twenty-six years earlier. On that occasion, addressing an audience of well-wishers, Leathers had proclaimed with satisfaction, “Gentlemen, none of we older men will live to see this time beaten, and probably few of the younger ones.” 9 Now at about eleven-thirty P . M ., standing on the boiler deck, staring over the Natchez ’s bow, straining to see if the distance between the two boats was closing, he checked the watch as the Natchez passed the one-hundred-mile point upriver from New Orleans and concluded that the Lee , which had passed the hundredmile point six minutes earlier, had gained no more than half a mile on the Natchez after running for a hundred miles. Leathers’s boat had not reduced the Lee ’s lead, but it had not let the gap substantially widen either.
Leathers checked his watch again as the Natchez reached Plaquemine, one hundred and thirteen miles from New Orleans. Making good speed, his boat then had covered thirteen miles, from the one-hundred-mile point, in forty-five minutes. Yet, as it raced toward Baton Rouge, it had not closed on the Robert E. Lee . At Baton Rouge Leathers looked at his watch once more. Eight hours and twenty-eight minutes had elapsed since he had passed St. Mary’s Market. And the Lee was still ten minutes ahead of him. The St.
Up to and beyond Plaquemine men and boys in skiffs came out almost in our track to hail us with warm welcome and get a word, if possible, with one of the officers or crew. This is but a moment. They are struck by the swells and dashed and rocked away off towards the shore, far in our wake. As long as they are in sight they wave us adieu. The inhabitants all appear to live out of doors, or are crowded in the windows or on the housetops as we approach. The most lively interest is depicted in every countenance and is uttered in every voice.
At Baton Rouge, which we reached about 1 o’clock, this morning, there were still people on the wharf, but silence had nearly been restored on shore, and during the rest of the night nothing was to be noted but the still, anxious groups on board. 6
By the time the sun had risen on the new day, the Robert E. Lee was pulling farther ahead, and its unsleeping captain, unable to shake his worry over the boat’s machinery, went down into the engine room and asked Perkins to slow down, telling him they were well in front of the Natchez , that there was no need to run at full speed. Perkins replied that it wasn’t the Natchez he was thinking of. Rather it was the speed record for a trip from New Orleans to Natchez, which had been set by Leathers’s fourth Princess in 1856 and which he intended to beat. The Lee ’s chief engineer was not concerned about the boat’s performance so far, and Cannon, apparently reassured, returned to his post on the upper deck.
On board the Natchez, another reporter from the St. Louis Republican , offering a different perspective of the race, observed that “The captain [Tom Leathers] is sleepless on deck, the pilots are nervous yet confident at the wheel, the engineers stand by their engines watching every movement of the machinery, and the firemen work like Trojans, and look like demons in the red glare of the furnaces.” 7 The anonymous reporter took time to notice the spectacle of the steamer racing through the darkness, “cleaving the river wide open,” as he put it. “The effect at night is simply grand,” he wrote. “The steamer plows on her watery way, puffing white clouds and streaming a constant current of fiery sparks from her chimney tops, bounded by blackness on either side. But the people on shore are sleepless, too, and send their greetings through the darkness as we pass.” 8
Leathers had been given a gold pocket watch as a trophy for his recordbreaking run from New Orleans to St. Louis less than two weeks earlier, when he had made the trip in three days, twenty-two hours and forty-five minutes, mere minutes faster than the old J.M. White had made it twenty-six years earlier. On that occasion, addressing an audience of well-wishers, Leathers had proclaimed with satisfaction, “Gentlemen, none of we older men will live to see this time beaten, and probably few of the younger ones.” 9 Now at about eleven-thirty P . M ., standing on the boiler deck, staring over the Natchez ’s bow, straining to see if the distance between the two boats was closing, he checked the watch as the Natchez passed the one-hundred-mile point upriver from New Orleans and concluded that the Lee , which had passed the hundredmile point six minutes earlier, had gained no more than half a mile on the Natchez after running for a hundred miles. Leathers’s boat had not reduced the Lee ’s lead, but it had not let the gap substantially widen either.
Leathers checked his watch again as the Natchez reached Plaquemine, one hundred and thirteen miles from New Orleans. Making good speed, his boat then had covered thirteen miles, from the one-hundred-mile point, in forty-five minutes. Yet, as it raced toward Baton Rouge, it had not closed on the Robert E. Lee . At Baton Rouge Leathers looked at his watch once more. Eight hours and twenty-eight minutes had elapsed since he had passed St. Mary’s Market. And the Lee was still ten minutes ahead of him. The St.
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