The Wicked River
Oct 21, 2010
The Wicked River
The Mississippi When it Last Ran Wild
Author: Lee Sandlin
Category: History - United States
Format: Hardcover, 304 pages
On Sale: October 19, 2010
Price: $26.95
ISBN: 978-0-307-37851-4 (0-307-37851-9)
A great historical tome describing life on the Mississippi river in the 1800s. How it really was, not how the romantics described it.
The Mississippi river towns were not peaceful towns filled with prosperity, sitting pretty along the banks of a slow moving river. These towns had disease, filth, heavy crime and lawlessness, poverty and natural disasters as their common themes. The river itself was, at that time, un-tamable and the people on it and on it’s banks, were at it’s mercy.
This book goes into some of the natural disasters such as tornadoes, flooding and yes, ice floes! It also describes the heavy pirating that occurred, along with the worst Naval disaster in American History – the sinking of the Sultana. All of these stories have individuals placed at the scene and are described via their lives so it makes for interesting reading, not dry history book fare.
Mark Twain romanticized the Mississippi river life, Lee Sandlin tells it like it really was.
