THE GREAT STEAMBOAT RACE Read online

  Table of Contents

  DEDICATION

  AUTHOR’S PREFACE

  NONPAREIL’S SPECS AND CREW

  ATCHAFALAYA’S SPECS AND CREW

  THAT SETTLES IT

  THE DEATH OF THE NONPAREIL

  THE SHOCK OF INDIVIDUAL DISASTER

  A NEW DREAM THAT YET WAS OLD

  THE HOLDER OF THE HORNS

  CANDLES IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY

  FORMED BY THE UNION

  NOT SINCE THE ECLIPSE

  FIRE TONIGHT, ASH TOMORROW

  A DIFFERENCE OF DOLLARS

  ON THE TURN OF A CARD

  AS UNAVOIDABLE AS WAR OR WEATHER

  NO BAD SYMBOL

  AFTERWORD & ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  REFERENCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  THE GREAT STEAMBOAT RACE

  John Brunner

  TO MALCOLM REISS

  1905–1975

  an admirable editor

  an outstanding agent

  and the person I most hoped

  would enjoy this book

  AUTHOR’S PREFACE

  Late in June 1870 the following advertisement appeared repeatedly in the New Orleans press:

  A CARD TO THE PUBLIC

  Being satisfied that the Steamer Natchez has a reputation of being fast, I take this method of informing the public that the report that the Natchez, leaving here next Thursday, 30th inst. intended racing, is not true. All passengers and shippers can rest assured that the Natchez will not race with any boat that may leave here on the same day with her. All business intrusted to my care, either in freight or passengers, will have the best attention.

  T.P. Leathers

  Master, Steamer Natchez

  And did it?

  Did it, hell!

  —J.K.H.B.

  Concerning

  Str. ATCHAFALAYA,

  fifth of her name,

  built 1866 at New Albany, Indiana,

  and jointly owned by Hosea Drew and Langston Barber

  Length: 285ʹ5ʺ

  Breadth: 48ʹ

  Chimney height: 95ʹ

  Draft under load: appx. 9ʹ

  Boilers: 8

  Engines: 2

  Cylinder diameter: 3ʹ4ʺ

  Wheel diameter: 38ʹ

  Stroke: 10ʹ

  Buckets: 16ʹ9ʺ x 2ʹ2ʺ

  Steam pressure: 110 psi

  Freight capacity: 1420 tons

  Master

  Captain Hosea DREW

  Pilots

  William TYBURN, Fernand LAMENTHE

  Clerks

  Euclid MOTLEY, Roger WILLS, David GRANT

  Engineers

  Hendrik FONCK, Patrick O’DOWD, James EALING, Walter PRESSLIE

  Carpenter

  Josh DIAMOND

  Mates

  Thomas CHALKER, Jack SEXTON

  Watchman

  Eli GROSS

  Caterer

  Ernest VEHM

  Steward

  Lewis AMBOY

  Cabin crew (including waiters, servants and cooks): 25

  Deck crew (including firemen): 65

  Making all told a complement of 106

  Concerning

  Str. NONPAREIL,

  third of her name,

  built 1869–70 at Cincinnati, Ohio,

  to the design of Miles Parbury but at the charge of Hamish Gordon

  Length: 303ʹ

  Breadth: 42ʹ6ʺ

  Chimney height: 97ʹ6ʺ

  Draft under load: appx. 9ʹ6ʺ

  Boilers: 8

  Engines: 2

  Cylinder diameter: 2ʹ10ʺ

  Wheel diameter: 42ʹ11ʺ

  Stroke: 10ʹ

  Buckets: 15ʹ8ʺ x 2ʹ2ʺ

  Steam pressure: 160 psi

  Freight capacity: 1510 tons

  Master

  Captain Cato WOODLEY

  Pilots

  Dermot HOGAN, Colin TRUMBULL, Zeke BARFOOT, Joe SMITH, Tom TACY

  Clerks

  Ian McNAB, Sam ILIFF

  “Mud clerk”

  Anthony CROSSALL

  Engineers

  Peter CORKRAN, Brian ROY, Victor STEEPLES, Caesar PREDULAC

  Carpenter

  Hiram BURGE

  Mates

  Solomon UNDERWOOD, Harry WHITWORTH

  Caterer

  Hans KATZMANN

  Steward

  Mortality BATES

  Bandmaster

  Manuel CAMPOS

  Cabin crew (including waiters, servants and cooks): 26

  Deck crew (including firemen): 69

  Making all told a complement of 114

  THAT SETTLES IT

  18TH JUNE 1870

  “It so happened that twenty-six years before… a boat named the J. M. White had broken all previous records in a fast run to St. Louis, making the trip in three days, twenty-three hours and nine minutes.”

  —Roy L. Barkhau,

  The Great Steamboat Race Between the Natchez and the Rob’t E. Lee

  Around the headland that is called Algiers the Mississippi describes the majestic curve that gave to New Orleans its eke-name of The Crescent City. Doubtless the Sieur de Bienville chose the site so that unfriendly ships approaching from the ocean would be forced to put about in range of defending guns.

  Into this sweeping bend on 18th June of 1870 there stormed the crack Atlantic liner Franche-Comté, out of Cherbourg on her normal route but with her best time bettered on this voyage by seven hours. And with her steam-siren howling at full blast, she scattered lesser traffic regardless of rule and custom: ferryboats and lighters and tugboats, paddlewheelers in the coasting trades doomed by this encounter to be overdue at Mobile or Brashear City, and excursion boats whose Sunday sightseers were thrilled to have this dividend of excitement declared on their invested nickels.

  A lean smart keen-prowed launch was standing to, steam up but idling, abreast the wharf at the foot of Congress Street. The Franche-Comté was still at English Turn when her screams became audible to the launch’s crew. Immediately they jumped to stations and she hurried off downriver at high speed. Seeing this, knowledgeable onlookers confided, “That French ship is surely due for trouble! There goes the Harbor Guard set to arrest her!”

  Instead, the launch confounded them and rode postilion for the liner, clearing her path with government approval and adding a shriller whistle to the siren’s row.

  The noise attracted more and ever more people to the levees, to the hurricane decks of moored steamers, to the windows of riverside warehouses. Questions were hurled that even men who had worked on the river all their lives were forced to parry. Perplexed, observers by the thousand struggled to make sense of what they saw.

  The heat was dreadful, and the air so humid that one could envisage taking a handful of it and twisting it until it shed water as plentifully as a dishcloth.

  Not muffled, for it kept its loudness, but diffused in the dense hot air like a light viewed through a misted pane, the sound of the liner’s onrush became detectable beyond Algiers, along the levee by the foot of Market Street.

  There a boat lay moored that had no business to be in New Orleans. Literally. She had been advertised for Louisville on Thursday last, and her clerks had been put to improbable shifts by the cancellation of her scheduled trip. Not only were many of her intending passengers incensed at having to make alternative arrangements; urgent cargo had had to be transferred, in several cases at a loss.

  Had she been a more ordinary vessel, simple explanations would have sprung to mind: the captain might be in dispute with his partners, or neglect of maintenance might have rendered her boilers so dangerous that the Cincinnati Board of Underwriters had refused the risk.

&n
bsp; But this was the sidewheeler Atchafalaya, fifth of her name, the standard against which since 1866 other Mississippi steamboats must be measured. Grudgingly it had become the accepted view that here was the great steamer of her day. Some of her rivals were faster, but they were not so reliable; some were larger, but they were also slower; some were more luxurious, but they carried far less freight. One day the Atchafalaya would surely be outdone. For the moment—

  For the moment she looked as though a hurricane had hit her. Since her return from Louisville on Tuesday, carpenters had attacked her like an army of termites. Every bit of superstructure not essential to her running had been dismantled; even the glazing had been ripped from her cabin so that the wind might whistle past the fretted ornaments, over the bright expensive Brussels carpet. Glass had been left only where it was indispensable, in the pilothouse. As much of the housings that covered her huge wheels had been removed as was consistent with protecting the main deck from splash and spray. And out of sight below they had sawn through some of her stanchions; it was held that a limber boat was a faster boat.

  Additionally she had taken on pine knots by the ton load: resinous, hot-burning, and expensive.

  Surely she must be being prepared for a race!

  But against which other steamer? Candidate after candidate was considered and rejected. And when the field was narrowed down to one, the Nonpareil, there remained two baffling problems.

  Quite possibly the Nonpareil was capable of running out the older boat. She had already set several records in the lower Mississippi. But according to this morning’s telegraph messages she was at Cairo, southbound with a cargo from St. Louis.

  And what was worse, the captain of the Atchafalaya was “Old Poetical” Hosea Drew. A man who never, never raced his boats.

  Though he could handle them. Oh, yes! Not a few of his colleagues harbored resentment against him, a legacy of the war, but even his sworn enemies would not deny that Hosea Drew could match the best.

  Then the Franche-Comté came bellowing upriver, and there was no more need for guesswork.

  The liner was here too soon. Sooner than most people had been willing to bet. A few morbid souls had thought to make a sweepstakes on her time, but none had guessed that she would cut her own record by such a giant margin.

  Taken by surprise, yet prompt upon the siren’s signal—which had been agreed by transatlantic cable—the Atchafalaya cast loose in a grand flurry of shorebound roustabouts and workmen struggling to retrieve their tools. Her smokestacks uttered local thunderclouds.

  Every eye was upon her as she stood out from shore… and headed in the wrong direction. Downriver. Downtown. Meanwhile frantic deckhands slung hawsers on her larboard side and to them tied thick fenders of hemp and coconut-fiber.

  This was an unheard-of way to start a race. What in creation could Hosea Drew be at?

  In the short Gretna reach she swung about with an easy grace and for a minute or two hovered bow-on to the current, wheels turning just enough to counteract it. Some watchers who had never been uptown farther than Canal enjoyed their first sight of this famous steamer named for a bay and river to the west of their city. On a dead slow bell she waited for the Franche-Comté.

  Which came, tailing the launch, headlong around the Gouldsborough Bend.

  The Atchafalaya went slow astern and aligned herself on the same course as the liner, then switched to half-ahead.

  At this, the whistling from the launch took on a note of panic. Her commander was a mere lieutenant, and very young.

  But since Head of Passes the Franche-Comté had been in the charge of a Louisiana pilot, the most experienced who could be found. He sensed what Drew intended, and exploited the steam-siren to utter such a vocabulary of wordless insult that the launch herself appeared to get the drift, and took it, sliding to larboard as the liner and the steamer closed. It was reported subsequently that the lieutenant had the decency to blush when he saw what he had come so near to preventing: a feat that rivermen were to talk of for a generation.

  A great silence was falling along the banks and on the decks of all the ships in sight of this meeting. To any but the most informed observer it seemed certain there must be a collision.

  Yet there was not.

  The Atchafalaya took a sheer from the bow wave of the liner. In the same second Drew gave orders: full ahead! He could just be discerned in his pilothouse, wearing—as ever—a coat of defiant blue. His hair and beard had turned to gray the year the war broke out, and there were those who said that was only fair compensation.

  Meantime, inappropriately clad in a thick frieze jacket, black trousers, heavy laced boots and a tall hat, a plump man emerged on the liner’s deck clutching a leather bag attached to his right wrist by a chain. He was followed by a muscular sailor who carried a weighty portmanteau. Almost in step they advanced toward the starboard rail.

  The vessels slid together and briefly touched. Some paint was scraped despite the fenders; some creaking was heard from the paddlewheeler’s guards. And then they drew apart.

  The plump man was aboard the Atchafalaya, supported by the arms of two strong blacks; a third caught the portmanteau. And the Atchafalaya was running as had the Franche-Comté, her whistle blasting likewise.

  (Before the day was out eyewitnesses were already recounting in awed tones, “He did it without making fast a line!”)

  Admittedly the tall hat blew overside… but no matter. The important passenger was on his way to St. Louis, with his precious bag intact.

  The liner, like an exhausted greyhound, lay back into the care of tugs to moor at her normal landing. Her passengers and deckhands were uttering cheers. Unaware that there was a better reason to applaud than to express thanks for a memorable spectacle, the many onlookers joined in.

  Among them a handful knew the identity of the important passenger. One was a young reporter who enjoyed access to certain information transmitted by the oceanic cable. He had watched the drama with one hand upholding an old-fashioned brass-cased telescope, the other scribbling notes.

  Beside him, wielding expensive new binocular field glasses, stood his cousin, two years his junior but, since childhood, his best friend, who had returned the year before from France… as it happened, aboard the Franche-Comté on her maiden voyage. Now he said, “You think the physic will arrive in time?”

  For the plump man was Dr. Émile Larzenac, colleague and rival of Pasteur, and at St. Louis there lay abed two children with a wasting sickness, son and daughter of the man reputed richest in the city. Speaking of their mother, the reporter answered, “Well, Mrs. Grammont would rather trust in Drew than railroads.”

  “So that implies she’s bound to beat the White!”

  His mind more preoccupied by the late conflict between the blue and the gray, the reporter looked blank for a moment, then made connection with the legendary steamer whose time from New Orleans to St. Louis had stood unsurpassed for a quarter of a century.

  Sighing, he said, “I guess you’re right. She’ll take the horns.”

  “Don’t look so glum about it,” said his cousin. “It’s all news, n’est-ce pas? You must be grateful for whatever sells more copies of your paper.”

  By now the Atchafalaya was approaching the Jackson Avenue ferry and very shortly would be out of sight. It was a fine beginning to a high-speed run. Yet, as he followed the boat with his field glasses, his face fell.

  “As to glum,” said the reporter, “you should be cheerfuller yourself. You must have won the sweepstakes on the liner because no one else expected her to be more than three hours under her best time.”

  “But if I did, I’ve backed the Atchafalaya with my winnings.”

  “Oh! Have you now? To do what—break the record to St. Louis?”

  “Naturally.”

  Looking lugubrious, the reporter chided, “One day you’ll find a better use to put your money too… But we just agreed, or I thought we did, that here again you’re on a won bet. So long as she doesn’
t burst her boilers, she—”

  “Did you hear a gun yet? I didn’t!”

  “Ah!” said the reporter with a nod. It was customary to fire a shot and mark the official instant from which the beginning of a run could be timed. So far, none had rung out from the ornamental brass cannon on the stem of the Atchafalaya.

  “Is Drew going to spoil it all?” said his cousin pettishly. “Wouldn’t that be like him, just?” Lowering his glasses, he drew a watch from his fob pocket. Gold-cased, it was made by one of the finest Parisian horologists and kept near-chronometer time. Consulting it, he went on, “I’ll never understand how a man like him who simply doesn’t groove came to be partners with a sport like Langston Barber—”

  Bang.

  He almost dropped his watch in the act of snatching up the binoculars again. A puff of smoke was still visible in the air above the steamer’s foredeck when he got them focused, but a moment later it was dispersed in the raging draught of her eight vast boilers.

  “Square abreast St. Mary’s Market!” he cried, marveling. “The perfect place! That must be Barber’s doing—can’t be Drew’s! I’ll take the time off all the clocks in sight. Write it down, will you? There’s always argument about how right a watch is, even one as good as mine.”

  Forbearing to comment, the reporter obediently listed half a dozen times that coincided to within a couple of minutes.