Author:
Format: Quality Paperback
Publisher: Vintage Books USA
Published: Oct 2011
Genre: History - United States - 19th Century
Retail Price: $17.95
Pages: 320
A riveting narrative look at one of the most colorful, dangerous, and peculiar places in America\'s historical landscape: the strange, wonderful, and mysterious Mississippi River of the 19th century.\r\n \r\nBeginning in the early 1800s and climaxing with the siege of Vicksburg in 1863, Wicked River brings to life a place where river pirates brushed elbows with future presidents and religious visionaries shared passage with thieves. Here is a minute-by-minute account of Natchez being flattened by a tornado; the St. Louis harbor being crushed by a massive ice floe; hidden, nefarious celebrations of Mardi Gras; and the sinking of the Sultana, the worst naval disaster in American history. Here, too, is the Mississippi itself: gorgeous, perilous, and unpredictable. Masterfully told, Wicked River is an exuberant work of Americana that portrays a forgotten society on the edge of revolutionary change.