Old Times on the Upper Mississippi
freight had to be lightered, and then it took two steamboats, pulling
on quadruple tackles, "luffed" together, to pull her into deep water.
The power applied would have pulled her in two, had it come from
opposite directions.
"Sparring off" was a science in itself. Just how to place your spars;
in what direction to shove the bow of the boat; or whether to "walk
her over" by setting the spars at a "fore and aft" angle, one on each
side, and thus push the boat straight ahead--these were questions
to be answered as soon as reports were received from the pilot who
was sent out in the yawl to sound the whole bar. To a landsman, the
use to which were to be put the great sticks of straight-grained,
flawless yellow (or Norway) pine, standing on either side of the
gangway, was quite unknown until the boat brought up on the sandy
bottom of the river. Then, if it was the first time these timbers
had been called into play that season, the lashings were cut away
with a sharp axe; the detail from the crew sent to the roof eased
away on the falls, until the derricks leaned forward at an angle
of forty-five degrees. The crew on the forecastle overhauled the
great four-by-five, or five-by-six ply falls, and hooked the lower
block into the iron ring under the steamer's quarter, just above
the load-line. This ring was attached to the hull by massive bolts,
extending through several feet of timbers on the inside of the
sheathing--the timbers running back the length of the hull, in
well-built boats, so that with sufficiently solid footing for the
spars, and with sufficient power, the steamer might be lifted bodily
off the bar, without "hogging" the boat--the technical term for
bending or breaking the hull out of shape.
When it was decided by a conference of the captain, the pilots, and
the mate, or by the captain's judgment alone, in what direction the
bow of the boat was to be thrown, the foot of the spar was shoved
clear of the guards and lowered away by the derrick-fall until its
foot was firmly fixed, and the spar at the proper angle, and in the
proper direction. The hauling part of the tackle (or fall, as it is
called) was then passed through a snatch-block and carried to the
capstan, around the barrel of which six or seven turns were taken,
and the best man in the crew given charge of the free end. If the
case was a very bad one--if the boat was on hard--the double-purchase
gear was put on the capstan, to give additional power, and steam was
turned on the hoisting engine, (or "donkey") which also operated the
capstan by a clutch gear. Ordinarily the boat quickly responded to
all this application of power, was slowly pushed off the reef and
headed for the channel, and the wheel was soon able to drive her
ahead and away from the bar.
This taking care of the free end of the tackle as it came from the
capstan, was a work of more importance than might appear to the
novice. The barrel of the capstan is concave; the line feeds on to
it at the thickest part, either at the top or the bottom of the
capstan. After it reaches a certain point all the turns must slip
down to the narrowest part, and the work of winding upward begin
over. The man who is handling the free end of the line must often
slack a little--just enough to start the slipping--and then hold
hard, so that it may go down easily, without giving any further
slack. It looks easy, but it isn't. I have seen a careless man give
so much slack to his line, when there was a very heavy strain upon
it--in fact when the whole weight of the forward end of the steamer
was pendant upon the spar--that the recoil of the tackle, though not
over an inch or two, would let the hull drop with a force that would
almost shake the chimneys out of her, and could be felt the length
of the boat. It was also a post of some danger, as I have heard
of instances in which the recoil snapped the tackle, and severely
injured the men under and about the spar and capstan.
The spars are shod with heavy iron points about a foot in length,
which would grip the solid clay or gravel underlying the superficial
layers of sand forming the bar. When there was "no bottom" to the
sand, and the applied power, instead of lifting the steamer only
shoved the spar into the quicksand, another footing was used--a
block built of two three-inch sections of oak about eighteen inches
in diameter, bound and crossed with iron, and having a hole in the
centre through which the iron point of the spar was passed until the
shoulder rested on the block. This block could not be driven deeply
into the sand, and usually gave a secure footing. A rope attached to
a ring in the block served to haul it out of the sand after the spar
was hoisted aboard.
The spectacle afforded by the "sparring off" process was always
one of great interest to the passengers, and of excitement to the
officers and crew. There were drawbacks to this interest, however,
when the passengers were in a hurry, and the boat lay for hours,
sometimes for days, before being released, the crew working day and
night without sleep, and with little time even to eat. We once lay
three days on Beef Slough bar; and the "War Eagle" was eight days
on the same bar, having been caught on a falling river, being only
released after passengers and freight were transferred to other and
lighter boats.
For the officers and crew, there was no halo about an incident
of this kind. In low water, it was to some boats of almost daily
occurrence, somewhere on the river, even with the most skilful
pilots. The fact was, that there were places where there was not
enough water in the channel for a boat to pass without striking; and
if one got out of the channel by ever so little, it was of course
still worse. There were several places where it was to be expected
that the boat must be hauled over the reef by taking out an anchor
ahead, or by hauling on a line attached to a tree on the bank, if
the channel ran near enough to render the latter expedient possible.
I have injected this description of sparring off into the chapter
devoted to the "Old Man", not because the process necessarily
devolved upon him alone; but because as captain his will was law in
any disputed point, and because upon him rested the responsibility
of navigating his boat. He naturally took an active interest in the
work, and was always on hand when it was done. But quite often the
mate knew more of the _finesse_ of poling a boat off a bar, than did
the captain; and some captains were shrewd enough to give the mate
practically full control, only standing on the roof for appearance
sake, while the latter did the work. It was, however, every man's
work, and if any one had a practical idea, or a practical suggestion,
whether pilot, engineer, mate, or carpenter, it was quickly put to
the test. The main thing was to get off the bar, and to get off
"quick."
Chapter X
_The Pilots and Their Work_
We come now to the consideration of that part of river life of which
I was an interested observer, rather than an active participant. Had
not the great war burst upon the country, and the fever of railroad
construction run so high, it is possible that I might have had my
name enrolled in the list containing such masters of the profession
as William Fisher, John King, Ed. West, Thomas Burns, Thomas
Cushing, and a hundred others whose names were synonyms for courage,
precision, coolness in danger, exact knowledge, ready resource, and
all else necessary in the man who stood at the wheel and safely
guided a great steamer through hundreds of miles of unlighted and
uncharted river.
Compared with those days, the piloting of to-day, while still a
marvel to the uninitiated, is but a primer compared to the knowledge
absolutely necessary to carry a steamboat safely through and around
the reefs, bars, snags, and sunken wrecks which in the olden time
beset the navigator from New Orleans to St. Paul. The pilot of that
day was absolutely dependent upon his knowledge of and familiarity
with the natural landmarks on either bank of the river, for guidance
in working his way through and over the innumerable sand-bars and
crossings. No lights on shore guided him by night, and no "diamond
boards" gave him assurance by day. No ready search-light revealed
the "marks" along the shore. Only a perspective of bluffs, sometimes
miles away, showing dimly outlined against a leaden sky, guided the
pilot in picking his way over a dangerous crossing, where there was
often less than forty feet to spare on either side of the boat's
hull, between safety and destruction.
To "know the river" under those conditions meant to know absolutely
the outline of every range of bluffs and hills, as well as every
isolated knob or even tree-top. It meant that the man at the wheel
must know these outlines absolutely, under the constantly changing
point of view of the moving steamer; so that he might confidently
point his steamer at a solid wall of blackness, and guided only by
the shapes of distant hills, and by the mental picture which he had
of them, know the exact moment at which to put his wheel over and
sheer his boat away from an impending bank. To-day a thousand beacons
are kindled every night to mark the dangerous or intricate crossings;
by day, great white "diamond boards" spot the banks. At night the
pilot has only to jingle a bell in the engine-room, the dynamo is
started, and by pulling a line at either hand the search-light
turns night into day, the big white board stands out in high relief
against the leafy background, and the pilot heads for it, serene in
the confidence that it is placed in line with the best water; for he
knows that the government engineers have sounded every foot of the
crossing within a date so recent as to make them cognizant of any
change in its area or contour. Constantly patrolling the river, a
dozen steamboats, fully equipped for sounding, measuring, and marking
the channel, are in commission during the months of navigation, each
being in charge of officers graduated from the most exacting military
and technical school in the world, and having under them crews
composed of men educated by practice to meet any emergency likely
to arise. If a snag lodges in the channel it is reported at the
nearest station, or to the first government steamer met, and within
a few hours it is removed. Dams and shear-dykes direct the water
in permanent, unshifting channels. Riprap holds dissolving banks,
and overhanging trees are cut away. Millions of dollars have been
spent in the work, and its preservation costs hundreds of thousands
annually. All this outlay is to-day for the benefit of a scant score
of steamboats between St. Louis and St. Paul. Forty years ago two
hundred men, on a hundred boats, groped their way in darkness, amid
known and unknown terrors, up and down the windings of the great
river, without having for their guidance a single token of man's
helpful invention.
There are men now living who may see all this vast expenditure
utilized, as it is not now. The building of the inter-oceanic canal
across the isthmus is certain to give new direction to the commerce
of the world. It is fair to presume that the Mississippi may again
assert itself as one of the greatest arteries of commerce in the
world, and that the products of the Minnesota and Dakota farms will
find their way down the river to New Orleans, instead of across the
continent to New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore tidewater.
If this effect does follow the building of the canal, as many
clear-headed students of economic problems predict, the Mississippi
will again assume its old-time standing and influence as a great
highway of commerce. The hope is at least father to this thought.