Lincoln in New Orleans: The 1828-1831 Flatboat Voyages and Their Place in History
In 1828, a teenaged Abraham Lincoln guided a flatboat down the Mississippi River to New Orleans. The adventure marked his first visit to a major city and exposed him to the nation's largest slave marketplace. It also nearly cost him his life, in a nighttime attack in the Louisiana plantation country. That trip, and a second one in 1831, would form the two longest journeys of Lincoln's life, his only visits to the Deep South, and his foremost experience in a racially, culturally, and linguistically diverse urban environment. Lincoln in New Orleans: The 1828-1831 Flatboat Voyages and Their Place in History reconstructs, to levels of detail and analyses never before attempted, the nature of those two journeys and examines their influence on Lincoln's life, presidency, and subsequent historiography. It also sheds light on river commerce and New Orleans in the antebellum era, because, as exceptional as Lincoln later came to be, he was entirely archetypal of the Western rivermen of his youth who traveled regularly between the "upcountry" and the Queen City of the South. Featuring new data sources, historical photos, and custom-made analytical maps and graphs, Lincoln in New Orleans brings new knowledge to one of the least-known but most influential episodes in Lincoln's life. This is a Lincoln story, a Mississippi River story, a New Orleans story, and an American story.
1100869946
Lincoln in New Orleans: The 1828-1831 Flatboat Voyages and Their Place in History
In 1828, a teenaged Abraham Lincoln guided a flatboat down the Mississippi River to New Orleans. The adventure marked his first visit to a major city and exposed him to the nation's largest slave marketplace. It also nearly cost him his life, in a nighttime attack in the Louisiana plantation country. That trip, and a second one in 1831, would form the two longest journeys of Lincoln's life, his only visits to the Deep South, and his foremost experience in a racially, culturally, and linguistically diverse urban environment. Lincoln in New Orleans: The 1828-1831 Flatboat Voyages and Their Place in History reconstructs, to levels of detail and analyses never before attempted, the nature of those two journeys and examines their influence on Lincoln's life, presidency, and subsequent historiography. It also sheds light on river commerce and New Orleans in the antebellum era, because, as exceptional as Lincoln later came to be, he was entirely archetypal of the Western rivermen of his youth who traveled regularly between the "upcountry" and the Queen City of the South. Featuring new data sources, historical photos, and custom-made analytical maps and graphs, Lincoln in New Orleans brings new knowledge to one of the least-known but most influential episodes in Lincoln's life. This is a Lincoln story, a Mississippi River story, a New Orleans story, and an American story.
9.99 In Stock
Lincoln in New Orleans: The 1828-1831 Flatboat Voyages and Their Place in History

Lincoln in New Orleans: The 1828-1831 Flatboat Voyages and Their Place in History

by Richard Campanella
Lincoln in New Orleans: The 1828-1831 Flatboat Voyages and Their Place in History

Lincoln in New Orleans: The 1828-1831 Flatboat Voyages and Their Place in History

by Richard Campanella

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Overview

In 1828, a teenaged Abraham Lincoln guided a flatboat down the Mississippi River to New Orleans. The adventure marked his first visit to a major city and exposed him to the nation's largest slave marketplace. It also nearly cost him his life, in a nighttime attack in the Louisiana plantation country. That trip, and a second one in 1831, would form the two longest journeys of Lincoln's life, his only visits to the Deep South, and his foremost experience in a racially, culturally, and linguistically diverse urban environment. Lincoln in New Orleans: The 1828-1831 Flatboat Voyages and Their Place in History reconstructs, to levels of detail and analyses never before attempted, the nature of those two journeys and examines their influence on Lincoln's life, presidency, and subsequent historiography. It also sheds light on river commerce and New Orleans in the antebellum era, because, as exceptional as Lincoln later came to be, he was entirely archetypal of the Western rivermen of his youth who traveled regularly between the "upcountry" and the Queen City of the South. Featuring new data sources, historical photos, and custom-made analytical maps and graphs, Lincoln in New Orleans brings new knowledge to one of the least-known but most influential episodes in Lincoln's life. This is a Lincoln story, a Mississippi River story, a New Orleans story, and an American story.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781935754411
Publisher: University of Louisiana at Lafayette Press
Publication date: 02/18/2014
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 392
File size: 41 MB
Note: This product may take a few minutes to download.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Origins

Lincoln's ancestry

Thomas Lincoln in New Orleans

Lincoln's Kentucky birth and childhood

Indiana boyhood

Lincoln and the Ohio River

A traumatic end and a new beginning 7

The 1828 Experience

Warm weather, high water

Building the flatboat

The launch mystery

Initial evidence for a spring launch

The case for a fall/winter launch

Weaknesses in the fall/winter launch hypothesis

Further evidence for a spring launch

The likely departure date

Launch site, cargo, itinerary, and speed

Down the Ohio River

Into the Mississippi River

Into Louisiana waters

Lingering along the Louisiana sugar coast

The attack

Locating the attack site

Recovering and proceeding

Arriving in New Orleans

Docking at the flatboat wharf

Narrowing down the docking site

Dispensing of the cargo

Life along the flatboat wharf

Dismantling the flatboat

Footloose in New Orleans

Room and board

Conspicuous bumpkins

"Babel of all Babels ... Sodom of all Sodoms"

Window to the world

Slaves on the run, slaves on the block

Hewlett's Exchange

Sightseeing

People

watching

Retailing

Street life

Departure

A different view of Indiana

Off to Illinois

Deep snows, dark times 35

The 1831 Experience

Construction and launch

Mill-dam incident

Second voyage to New Orleans

A change of crew at St. Louis

Southbound

Making an acquaintance

Arriving in New Orleans

In the streets, circa 1831

170 people

Elijah

Pontchartrain Railroad, the talk of the town

The final departure 143

Lincoln and New Orleans, 1831-1865 185

The Lalaurie incident

William de Fleurville

The John Shelby incident

Presidency and war

Fall of New Orleans

Emancipation

A spy in New Orleans

The Louisiana experiment

Roudanez and Bertonneau

A dark and indefinite shore 185

Conclusions

The slavery influence

The internal improvements influence

The political image influence

The worldview influence

The rite-of-passage influence

The mythological influence 207

Appendix A Western River Commerce in the Early 1800s

Americans in the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys

Routes to market

Western river craft

The flatboat

"Cutting loose"

Life on board

Flatboat travel

Flatboat cargo

The keelboat

The steamboat Voyage of the New Orleans

The new West

Western river trade in Lincoln's era

The flatboatman in Lincoln's era 247

Appendix B New Orleans in the 1820s-1830s 285

Rough start in a place apart

A dramatic change of destiny

Creoles in a new American city

Americans in an old Creole city

Cotton and sugar commerce

Risk, ruin, and reward

A growing and diversifying population

Ethnic tensions

Slavery and race relations

Geography

of slavery

A cityscape of bondage

Slave trading

The city from afar

The port up close

Port management

Port controversies

Urban growth and internal improvements

The Great Southern Emporium 285

References 343

369

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