and published by the Washington State Capital Museum, as a Wilkes exhibition and Washington State Centennial spin-off. Blumenthal's new edition limits itself to Washington's Puget Sound, and fulfills the need to gather scattered journal material into a concise volume that triangulates the views of Wilkes, his officers, and crew into a composite impression of the expedition, its wo rk, and the world in which it found itself. By adding the journals of ten observers to Wilkes' own narrative, it creates a tableau of the precise moment in history between the eras ofdiscovery and settlement. Their collective viewpoints capture Native American people and villages a decade before smallpox would decimate their populations. The visit to Puget Sound immediately precedes treaties with Great Britain and the tribes that would "settle" claims and counterclaims over the landscape and waves of immigrants who, by land and sea, would enter the Pacific Northwest. The observers record place names and describe natural features, as well as the mechanics of the survey effort itself-from malfunctioning equipment to insubordination and its retribution. Blumenthal's edition advances scholarship opportunities by narrowing the Wilkes spectacle and, at the same time, magnifying its moment in time within a regional geography that has undergone great social and environmental transformation. ROBERT STEELQUIST Sequim, Washington
The Great American Steamboat Race: The Natchez and the Robert E. Lee and the Climax of an Era by Benton Rain Patterson (McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, Jefferson, NC, 2009, 216pp, illus, notes, biblio, index, ISBN 978-0-78644292-8 ; $35pb) New Orleans, Thursday June 30th, 1870, minutes short of 5PM: a crewman's axe severs the single line holding the Robert E. Lee to the wharf. Captain and owner Jon W Cannon backs the stately-but stripped down-paddlewheeler into the Mississippi River and turns the vessel upriver. The official starting time is 4:59:45PM. As soon as the Lee is clear, Thomas P. Leathers, owner and captain of the Natchez, swings his vessel out into the stream. The signal cannon
SEA HISTORY 130, SPRING 2010
booms at 5:02PM. The race of the century is on! On to St. Louis! ... a steamboat race was aspectaclewithout an equal...To see a well-matched pair of crack steamboats tearing past, foam flying, flames spurting from the tops of blistered stacks, crews and passengers yelling-the man or woman or - c!!!!!:=:'.j!I child . .. that had seen this had a story of Manhattan, is terra incogn.ita. A military to tell to grandchildren. post for most of its history, visits by civilians It certainly was not a race for the faint of were, until recent years, rarely authorized. heart. The two brawny captains were up Most New Yorkers were left to wonder to the task. Their rivalry for supremacy of what life was like on the island, so near speed on the river was intense, including a and yet so far. Now Ann L. Buttenwieser, fist fight in a saloon, after which they not an urban planner and author of Manhatonly ceased to speak to each other, they tan Water-Bound: Manhattan's Water-front refused to exchange whistle salutes whilst from the Seventeenth Century to the Present, passing on the river-a grave breach of has teamed up again with Syracuse Univerriverboat etiquette. This would not be the sity Press to offer this superlative addition to the growing literature of New York only etiquette breached during the race: subterfuges, cunning, what might even be Harbor. The book's framework is chronologicalled unsportsmanlike behavior held sway, encouraged by the highly partisan groups cal, taking the reader from the eighteenth backing, betting, or simply cheering the century, when the 60th Regiment of Foot, the famous Royal Americans, were orgaboats on. Ben ton Rain Patterson wri res a cracking nized on then-Nutten Island and Israel good narrative of the race, with the sort of excitement one might expect from a World THE GLENCANNON Series announcer in a right game between bitter rivals. Between innings, so to speak, PRESS he fills in the background through which the boars are hurtling: the Civil War aftermath and westward expansion, the role of steam navigation on the Mississippi, the social life on the majestic boats and the NEW! Hardluck Coast, characters who captained them. The many west coast shipwrecks ... archival photographs from the era are Grave Passage, a Henry excellent. A caveat: I found myself craving a chart to follow the boars upstream. Grave Mystery ... An Act of Thoughts of Mark Twain's "Life on the Piracy, the story of the SS Mississippi" are unavoidable, bur rime Mayaguez ... Hollywood to and distance insure that this is Patterson's book. They make fine companions on the Honolulu, LosAngeles. S.S. bookshelf. Co .... The Tankers from A ARDEN SCOTT to Z. The Victory Ships from Greenport, New York
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Governors Island: The jewel ofNew York Harbor by Ann L. Buttenwieser (Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, NY, 2009, 288pp, illus, notes, biblio, index, ISBN 9780-8156-0936-0; $60hc) For most New Yorkers, Governor's Island, the small island off the southern tip
A to Z. The Liberty Ships from A to Z ... more. FREE
1-800-711-8985 Online catalog at www.glencannon.com CATALOG
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