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Mississippi River

General Grant escapes the swamps and a War Department move to relieve him of command

Most terrible steamboat disaster in history, probably, was the loss of the Sultana in 1865. Some 1,700 returning Union veterans died—yet the tragedy got very few headlines.

COPYRIGHT © 1976 BY RICHARD WHEELER

In Florida the great conquistador hoped to find a Golconda. Instead, he found a Golgotha. 

Before the days of the explorers, the Mississippi was an Indian river. Spreading in a vast belt from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico was a multitude of tribes—Fox, Potawatomi, Kickapoo, Iowa, Illinois, Winnebago, Miami, Masouten, Chickasaw, Oto, Quapaw, and others.

Nicholas Roosevelt’s fire canoe transformed the Mississippi.

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