Free The Great American Steamboat Race by Benton Rain Patterson

Louis Republican ’s reporter, observing the Natchez ’s captain, described the scene and the mood:
    There was not much conversation. Capt. Leathers remained but a short time on the roof and then sat on the boiler deck absorbed in thought. The engineers watched carefully every movement, the firemen worked like Trojans, and looked like demons in the red glare of the furnaces....
    Heavy swells from the Lee are still striking the shores, and, to confess it, impeding our progress. But the Natchez still plows on her way, puffing white clouds and streaming a myriad of sparks from her chimneys. A wide breadth of the river is lighted up in front of the boat. 10
    Beyond Baton Rouge, the Lee ’s lead diminished slightly. When the boats reached the mouth of the Red River, the next checkpoint above Bayou Sara, their traveling times from St. Mary’s Market were identical — twelve hours and fifty-six minutes — although the Lee , having started ahead of the hardcharging Natchez , remained in front. By the time it reached Stamps’s Landing, upstream of the Red River’s mouth, the swift Robert E. Lee had increased its lead again, gaining four minutes on the Natchez . It was two miles ahead. Two checkpoints later, at Briar’s Landing, the speeding Lee had widened its lead still more.
    It was mid-morning on Friday when from the decks of the Lee the city of Natchez was sighted, standing atop the high bluff that rose from the river’s edge. It was at the Natchez waterfront that the six-prong gilded antlers, mounted on a carved deer’s head, were kept, the speed trophy awarded to the steamboat that made the fastest time between New Orleans and Natchez, then estimated at 296 river miles. Leathers had won the antlers — the horns, as they were called — for his record-setting run fourteen years earlier. He had made the trip in seventeen hours and thirty minutes, a time that many along the river believed impossible to beat. The Robert E. Lee was about to prove them wrong. Aboard the Lee , the St. Louis reporter wrote : “In a few minutes we will be opposite Natchez. The morning is beautiful, and everything is lovely.” 11
    The Lee , slowing down to take on fuel, approached the levee, “thronged all morning,” as one reporter wrote, “by immense and enthusiastic crowds of all colors and conditions,” and came abreast of the Natchez wharf just about 10:15 A . M . The band that had been assembled at the waterfront, expecting to hail the city’s favorite in the race, the Natchez , as it glided in first, was so dismayed by the Lee ’s arrival ahead of the Natchez , that it refused to play a note for Cannon and his boat. The spectators massed at the river’s edge were more sportsmanlike, though, breaking out into loud cheers. “Great crowds on the wharf,” the St. Louis newsman aboard the Lee reported, “and when we left, the wildest shouts went up. Every heart on board was touched with excitement. The tension of the nerves is continual and almost painful at times. Truly the Lee is a thing of life.” 12
    The Robert E. Lee had made Natchez in seventeen hours and eleven minutes, beating the Princess ’s record time by nineteen minutes. Bettors who had put their money on the Lee in this first important phase of the race were exultant. In Natchez, though, “betting immediately fell to zero,” the St. Louis reporter observed, “everybody wanting odds on the Natchez .” 13
    The Lee slid by the wharf boat, a floating, covered dock moored in the river, without stopping, and the Lee ’s Natchez agent, responding to shouts of “Take down those horns!” coming from passengers and crewmen aboard the Lee , jumped aboard with the horns, prettily trimmed with flowers and ribbons. The antlers made a handsome trophy, attached to a polished wood plaque with an inscription, apparently dictated by Leathers, that read: “Why Don’t You Take The Horns? Princess’ Time To Natchez, 17 Hours and 30 Minutes.” Cannon took the coveted horns and