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Chapter 16 - Racing Days
IT was always the custom for the boats to leave New
Orleans between four and five o'clock in the afternoon.
From three o'clock onward they would be burning rosin and pitch pine
(the sign of preparation), and so one had the picturesque spectacle
of a rank, some two or three miles long, of tall, ascending columns
of coal-black smoke; a colonnade which supported a sable roof of
the 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 more
than usual emphasis; countless processions of freight barrels
and boxes were spinning athwart the levee and flying aboard
the stage-planks, belated passengers were dodging and skipping
among these frantic things, hoping to reach the forecastle
companion way alive, but having their doubts about it;
women with reticules and bandboxes were trying to keep up
with husbands freighted with carpet-sacks and crying babies,
and making a failure of it by losing their heads in the whirl
and roar and general distraction; drays and baggage-vans were
clattering hither and thither in a wild hurry, every now and
then getting blocked and jammed together, and then during ten
seconds one could not see them for the profanity, except vaguely
and 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 freight
into the hold, and the half-naked crews of perspiring negroes
that worked them were roaring such songs as 'De Las' Sack!
De Las' Sack!'--inspired to unimaginable exaltation by the chaos
of turmoil and racket that was driving everybody else mad.
By this time the hurricane and boiler decks of the steamers
would be packed and black with passengers.The 'last bells'
would begin to clang, all down the line, and then the powwow
seemed 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 being
hauled in, each with its customary latest passenger clinging
to the end of it with teeth, nails, and everything else,
and the customary latest procrastinator making a wild spring
shoreward 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 order
to 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 boom
and the multitudinous spectators swing their hats and huzza!
Steamer after steamer falls into line, and the stately procession goes
winging 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 hear
the crews sing, especially if the time were night-fall, and the forecastle
lit 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 opposite
was the case--that is, after the laws were passed which restricted
each 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 drowsed
around and allowed chips to get into the 'doctor' and shut off the water
supply from the boilers.
In the 'flush times' of steamboating, a race between two notoriously
fleet steamers was an event of vast importance.The date was set
for it several weeks in advance, and from that time forward, the whole
Mississippi Valley was in a state of consuming excitement.Politics and
the 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 surface
to 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 many
years ago, it was said that pains were taken to scrape the gilding off
the fanciful device which hung between the 'Eclipse's' chimneys, and that for
that 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 feet
forward 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 they
never will 'trim boat.'They always run to the side when there is anything
to see, whereas a conscientious and experienced steamboatman would stick to
the 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 would
stop 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 were
kept 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 there
jockeying a moment, and apparently watching each other's
slightest movement, like sentient creatures; flags drooping,
the pent steam shrieking through safety-valves, the black smoke
rolling 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 know
that the borders of the broad Mississippi are going to be
fringed with humanity thence northward twelve hundred miles,
to welcome these racers.
Presently tall columns of steam burst from the 'scape-pipes
of both steamers, two guns boom a good-bye, two red-shirted heroes
mounted on capstans wave their small flags above the massed crews
on the forecastles, two plaintive solos linger on the air a few
waiting seconds, two mighty choruses burst forth--and here they come!
Brass bands bray Hail Columbia, huzza after huzza thunders from
the 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-cord
wood-boats alongside.You should be on board when they take a couple
of 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 be
wondering 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 not
all alike, and the smartest pilots will win the race.If one of the boats has
a 'lightning' pilot, whose 'partner' is a trifle his inferior, you can tell
which one is on watch by noting whether that boat has gained ground or lost
some during each four-hour stretch.The shrewdest pilot can delay a boat
if 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 up
the river fast.
There is a great difference in boats, of course.For a long time I was on
a 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 lose
valuable trips because their passengers grew old and died, waiting for us
to get by.This was at still rarer intervals.I had the documents
for these occurrences, but through carelessness they have been mislaid.
This boat, the 'John J. Roe,' was so slow that when she finally sunk
in 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 pretty
exciting 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 times
in Fort Adams reach, which is five miles long.A 'reach' is a piece
of straight river, and of course the current drives through such a place
in 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' went
there in two days.Something over a generation ago,
a boat called the 'J. M. White' went from New Orleans
to 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.<footnote [Time disputed.
Some authorities add 1 hour and 16 minutes to this.]> In
1870 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 her
average speed was a trifle over fourteen miles per hour.
In the 'Eclipse's' day the distance between the two ports had become
reduced to one thousand and eighty miles; consequently her average
speed was a shade under fourteen and three-eighths miles per hour.
In the 'R. E. Lee's' time the distance had diminished
to about one thousand and thirty miles; consequently her
average was about fourteen and one-eighth miles per hour.
Therefore the 'Eclipse's' was conspicuously the fastest time that has
ever been made.
THE RECORD OF SOME FAMOUS
TRIPS
(From Commodore Rollingpin's Almanack.)
FAST TIME ON THE WESTERN WATERS
FROM NEW ORLEANS TO NATCHEZ--268 MILES
D.H.M.
1814 Orleans made the run in 6640
1814 Comet""510
1815 Enterprise""41120
1817 Washington""4
1817 Shelby ""320
1818 Paragon""38
1828 Tecumseh""3120
1834 Tuscarora ""121
1838 Natchez""117
1840 Ed. Shippen""18
1842 Belle of the West"118
1844 Sultana""1945
1851 Magnolia""1950
1853 A. L. Shotwell ""1949
1853 Southern Belle ""203
1853 Princess (No. 4)"2026
1853 Eclipse""1947
1855 Princess (New) ""1853
1855 Natchez (New)""1730
1856 Princess (New) ""1730
1870 Natchez""1717
1870 R. E. Lee ""1711
FROM NEW ORLEANS TO CAIRO--1,024 MILES
D.H.M.
1844 J. M. Whitemade the run in 3644
1852 Reindeer""31245
1853 Eclipse""344
1853 A. L. Shotwell ""3340
1869 Dexter ""3620
1870 Natchez""3434
1870 R. E. Lee ""31
FROM NEW ORLEANS TO LOUISVILLE--1,440 MILES
D.H.M.
1815 Enterprisemade the run in25240
1817 Washington""25
1817. Shelby""20420
1818 Paragon""1810
1828 Tecumseh""84
1834 Tuscarora ""716
1837 Gen. Brown""622
1837 Randolph""622
1837 Empress""617
1837 Sultana""615
1840 Ed. Shippen""514
1842 Belle of the West"614
1843 Duke of Orleans""523
1844 Sultana""512
1849 Bostona""58
1851 Belle Key ""3423
1852 Reindeer""42045
1852 Eclipse""419
1853 A. L. Shotwell ""41020
1853 Eclipse""4930
FROM NEW ORLEANS TO DONALDSONVILLE--78 MILES
H.M.
1852 A. L. Shotwell made the run in 542
1852 Eclipse"" 542
1854 Sultana"" 451
1860 Atlantic"" 511
1860 Gen. Quitman"" 56
1865 Ruth"" 443
1870 R. E. Lee "" 459
FROM NEW ORLEANS TO ST. LOUIS--1,218 MILES
D.H.M.
1844 J. M. Whitemade the run in 3239
1849 Missouri""419
1869 Dexter ""49
1870 Natchez""32158
1870 R. E. Lee ""31814
FROM LOUISVILLE TO CINCINNATI--141 MILES
D.H.M.
1819 Gen. Pike made the run in116
1819 Paragon ""11420
1822 Wheeling Packet ""110
1837 Moselle ""12
1843 Duke of Orleans ""12
1843 Congress""1220
1846 Ben Franklin (No. 6)"1145
1852 Alleghaney ""1038
1852 Pittsburgh ""1023
1853 Telegraph No. 3 ""952
FROM LOUISVILLE TO ST. LOUIS-750--MILES
D.H.M.
1843 Congressmade the run in 21
1854 Pike""123
1854 Northerner""12230
1855 Southemer ""119
FROM CINCINNATI TO PITTSBURGH--490 MILES
D.H.
1850 Telegraph No. 2 made the run in117
1851 Buckeye State""116
1852 Pittsburgh""115
FROM ST. LOUIS TO ALTON--30 MILES
D.H
1853 Altonamade the run in 135
1876 Golden Eagle""137
1876 War Eagle ""137
MISCELLANEOUS RUNS
In June, 1859, the St. Louis and Keokuk Packet, City of Louisiana,
made the run from St. Louis to Keokuk (214 miles) in 16 hours
and 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 hours
and 57 minutes.The distance between the ports is 600 miles,
and when the difficulties of navigating the turbulent Missouri
are taken into consideration, the performance of the Lucas
deserves especial mention.
THE RUN OF THE ROBERT E. LEE
The time made by the R. E. Lee from New Orleans to St. Louis
in 1870, in her famous race with the Natchez, is the best
on 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'clock
and 55 minutes, p.m.; reached
D.H.M.
Carrollton 27<half>
Harry Hills 100<half>
Red Church139
Bonnet Carre238
College Point350<half>
Donaldsonville 459
Plaquemine705<half>
Baton Rouge 825
Bayou Sara 1026
Red River1256
Stamps1356
Bryaro1551<half>
Hinderson's1629
Natchez1711
Cole's Creek1921
Waterproof 1853
Rodney2045
St. Joseph 2102
Grand Gulf 2206
Hard Times 2218
Half Mile below Warrenton1
Vicksburg138
Milliken's Bend 1237
Bailey's1348
Lake Providence 1547
Greenville 11055
Napoleon11622
White River11656
Australia119
Helena12325
Half Mile Below St. Francis2
Memphis 269
Foot of Island 3729
Foot of Island 2621330
Tow-head, Island 1421723
New Madrid 21950
Dry Bar No. 1022037
Foot of Island 822125
Upper Tow-head--Lucas Bend 3
Cairo31
St. Louis31814
The Lee landed at St. Louis at 11.25 A.M., on July 4th, 1870--6 hours
and 36 minutes ahead of the Natchez.The officers of the Natchez claimed
7 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 in
charge of that veteran Southern boatman, Captain Thomas P. Leathers.
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