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| Natchez vs Robert E. Lee |
Speed Was Everything
In March 1817 Captain Shreve commanded the steamer General Washington on a memorable trip from New Orleans to Louisville in 25 days.
Steamboats were constantly being improved. In 1828 the Tecumseh demonstrated how much by making the same run in eight days and seventeen hours and in 1843 the Sultana cut that time to four days and twenty-two hours.
The age of the steamboat introduced an era of unprecedented speed into the American consciousness. Suddenly, travel time was not dependant on river current or straining horses; instead, all rested on the power of the boiling steam engine, and the bravado of those who would stoke it higher and higher and then close the safety valves to ensure the fastest travel time. Not surprisingly, steamboat captains became known as terrible daredevils and raced each other for titles; who would own the route from New Orleans to St. Louis, from Natchez to Louisville.
In the fifteen years before the Civil War over five hundred boats thrashed through river waters, faster and faster. People began to think that the main reason the steamboats existed was to race.
Racing on the river had begun, and fortunes were wagered on the which was the fastest.
Safety Ignored
Zealous captains tied anvils on the safety valves of the boilers (or had crew members sit on them) to get up more steam - and consequently more speed - while the crew and even passengers feverishly fed the furnaces with resin, wood, pitch, and anything else to make the fires more intense. It is no wonder the boats burned and even exploded, from time to time, with a horrifying loss of life.
Passengers bribed, pleaded, and fought for berths farthest away from the boilers. But even the ones bedded down in the danger area became frenzied rooters for speed when another ship hove into sight.
The most famous race of all was the one between the Natchez and the Robert E. Lee from New Orleans to St. Louis.
Captain Leathers
Captain Thomas P. Leathers of the Natchez and Captain John W. Cannon of the Robert E. Lee were so colorful that people still tell stories about them. Captain Leathers had the heart of a showman. He was savage and reckless and given to grandstand plays when he was racing, delighting his river audiences with ballyhoo and action. As he shrewdly realized, the act paid off by filling his ship with people who liked to ride a fast boat commanded by a dramatic captain.
He used every trick in the book, threw slabs of bacon fat and tubs of hog fat into his boilers at crucial moments, cut across his rival's bows to make her slow down, and occasionally sent a cannon shot across the forward part of a steamer to vex her captain and amuse his own passengers. In time Leathers owned a succession of boats, each called Natchez, each showier and speedier than its predecessor. He was so sure of himself he would let a rival steamer leave before the Natchez, overtake it, and glide by while multitudes along the banks roared their admiration. The speed of his fourth Natchez made him really lord of the river in 1855.
The Robert E. Lee, Cannon's boat, was launched in 1866 and soon won acclaim for its speed. Captain Leathers boasted, when his sixth Natchez was launched in 1869, that she was the fastest thing on the river. But the Robert E. Lee had stout partisans and the papers had a field day debating the relative merits of the boats till Leathers and Cannon challenged each other to race.
The date was set for June 30, 1870.
All America and parts of Europe gobbled up every word of news of the race. Men exchanged blows, fortunes were wagered in every city in the United States, and partisanship ran just as high in London and Paris, where great sums were placed with stakeholders. Major newspapers in London, Paris, New York, Philadelphia, and Boston sent reporters to New Orleans and St. Louis to cover the event or contracted to have accounts transmitted by wire.
Captain Cannon
Captain Cannon had more than once been the goat of Captain Leathers’ raw show-off pranks and was hell bent on paying him back in his own coin. A few days before the race he had his crew strip the Robert E. Lee down to its bare hull. Every spare piece of wood and metal, all draperies, chandeliers, furniture, and fixtures were removed, cargo refused, and only a few passengers who wanted to get off at Cairo, Illinois, were taken aboard.
Captain Leathers, however, with an eye to revenue, not only carried the Natchez's scheduled passengers and freight but also made the flamboyant gesture of accepting the passengers and freight the Lee had refused. Both captains took the precaution of loading up on large barrels and boxes of lard, bacon fat, pine, resin, candle wax, pitch, and, as was usual in these contests, arranged for coal barges to stand by along the course.
The starting shot rang out at exactly 5 P.M.
Race Begins
Cannon spurted ahead of Leathers and four minutes later the Natchez steamed out of the harbor. Thousands of spectators, who had crowded the waterfront since early morning, shouted themselves hoarse as the two beautiful boats churned upstream. Runners, with watches in hand, stood at vantage points all up the river, clocking the steamers, and then dashed to telegraph the progress to a waiting and anxious world. When the Natchez passed Baton Rouge at 8:31 the Robert E. Lee was six minutes ahead of her.
Captain Leathers fumed and went below where the firemen, stripped to the waist, were dripping sweat in the scorching heat. He ordered a dipper of whisky from the whisky pail for each man and bellowed at them to feed the furnaces more pine and resin. Leathers believed in the power of whisky and he may have been right; the Natchez began to cut down the Lee's lead.
Leathers was holding to his regular schedule, delivering passengers, who scooted ashore co-operatively, and freight, which the roustabouts unloaded in record time. The Robert E. Lee made no stops.
Help From Steamboat Pargaud
When he left Natchez Under-the-Hill, Leathers was only six minutes behind Cannon. The Lee passed Vicksburg with the Natchez pressing hard, when Cannon pulled an unforeseen maneuver. The steamboat Frank Pargaud, loaded to the gunwales with tubs of lard, pine, and other combustibles, rested about midstream of the course. The Lee signaled. The Pargaud pulled parallel with the Lee. The Lee slowed down briefly while all hands rushed to lash the two ships together. The Pargaud kept its engines running to slow the Lee as little as possible while supplies were shifted at breakneck speed. Then the ropes were cut and the Lee dashed ahead as Cannon gloated.
She passed Memphis almost an hour ahead of the Natchez. The bluff was alight with hundreds of fires, for the whole population stayed up that night to see the fun and many of them because they stood to win or lose large sums. "Even the women," one newspaper reporter wrote, "are out in force, infants in arms, to bet off, probably, since horse, houses, and clothes already have been staked."
Jubilation Turns To Dismay
At Cairo, the only stop for Cannon, whisky was doled out to the crew and the departing passengers to toast the Lee's sure victory. The Natchez was supposed to be an hour away but jubilation turned to dismay when a harsh scraping sound was heard and the Lee shook from stem to stern. She was aground on a sand bar. Hardened crewmen cried unashamedly; some cursed bitterly. Captain Cannon ordered his pilot to turn every which way, and then reverse. Members of the crew prayed aloud while minutes were lost before a sharp squeaking noise sounded from the friction of the keel pulling off the sand bar. The men cheered joyfully, only to be silenced by the challenging blasts of a steamboat whistle and the sight of smoke around the nearest bend as the indomitable Captain Leathers let the Lee know the Natchez was breaking records to gain on her. The contest was grim and close as the steamboats raced in full view of each other.
Passengers Observation
A passenger aboard the racing steamboats the Robert E. Lee and the Natchez described a treacherous passage in the race:
"Finally the channel apparently narrowed, and the interval was closed rapidly up, until, with a bump, the two boats collided heavily, almost throwing me from my feet. The guards seemed to groan and tremble, but neither boat gave, and so the two rushed along with rubbing sides. I suddenly found myself standing face to face with a passenger on the other boat, and somewhat apparently to his surprise, extended my hand, and wished him a good morning.
"He shook my hand, remarking that he proposed to leave us; and so on the boats went."
"I think we must have rushed along in this way for several minutes; but, finally, they shouldered us out of the channel, and, giving a triumphant whistle, shot ahead and down the river, leaving us to follow."
Fog Arrives
By midnight it was anybody's race. Then fog closed in around them. Leathers thought of his passengers and freight, swallowed hard, and tied up alongside the bank to wait for morning. Captain Cannon recklessly refused to throw away his chance for glory. His crew tested the river's depth with fathom lines and the Lee inched ahead, every man aboard praying the boat would not hit a snag or run aground in the night and the fog. After an hour of this slow, tense groping, there was a break in the fog. The river stood ahead of them, calm and friendly. The men shouted and Captain Cannon turned a somersault on the texas deck. The race was in the bag.
The Lee arrived at St. Louis on July 4, three days and eighteen hours after leaving New Orleans. For the winning crew there was champions’ welcome -church bells ringing, cannons shot off, locomotive whistles shrilling. Some of the worshiping mob stormed aboard to greet the captain and crew, almost overturning the boat by the weight of their numbers.
The Natchez made port six hours and thirty-six minutes later and Leathers and his men were received with equal enthusiasm. Cannon and Leathers were wined and dined and congratulated at a mammoth party. Leathers held that, after subtracting the six hours' layover and the time taken by scheduled stops, his actual running time had been faster than Cannon's. Thousands agreed with him but most bets were paid off on the Lee in America. In Europe they were canceled, since London and Paris felt that the Lee's use of the Pargaud, the stripped condition of the boat, and the rejection of freight and passengers transgressed the limits of normal procedure.
Cardsharks Never Loose
Most of the riverboat gamblers had put their money on the Natchez. But at least two of them made a good thing out of the race anyway. Devol and Canada Billy Jones went up-river about twenty miles from New Orleans on the Mayflower to see part of the beginning of the race. The boat was crowded with rich young bloods and Devol and Jones decided to tackle the gentry while they waited. Canada Bill threw three-card monte and, Devol recalled, "The young sprigs of the aristocracy began to pile up the bills, which Bill was not slow to rake in. There was nothing mean about Bill, and he didn't refuse to take gold watches and sparklers; and after the game closed, some of the fellows resembled picked ducks."
Devol and Jones won thousands, much more than they lost on their bets on the Natchez.
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