This compact book is great for getting someone interested in the gunboats used on the Mississipi during the Civil War. Not a detailed reference, but a good overview with photos, plates and cutaways making this an interesting book that I have shared with many friends. The text and listing of boats used by both sides has led me to a whole new area of interest.

If you're interested in this sort of thing as I am this book could be of great value however the price is unreal. I have a CD that does much the same for the entire country at a third the price of one state however this book is MUCH more accurate and shows county boundaries that only occured for as little as three days. The CD is also easier to use. That said I'll likely ask for the book as one of those Christmas presents I wouldn't buy for myself.

My Mississippi by Willie Morris is the quintessential guide to the Magnolia State, brilliant authors, beautiful landscapes, warts and all. Morris covers every aspect of Mississippi, its people, culture, history, landmarks, and leaders, in his own inimitable way. No one turns a phrase better than the late Morris, and this, his final effort, creates no exception to that rule. The tone is conversational, almost as if you're listening to the author holding court, as he was wont to do, at one of his favorite Jackson restaurants. It's all here--the Civil War, civil rights struggles, the old 18th Century Natchez District, the state's incomparable literary heritage, the pathetic public school system, Ole Miss football, beauty pagents, catfish farms, the histrionic Delta. All beautifully and lovingly described by Morris. The only disappointments are the photographs, which are frequently amateurish and, unlike the prose, seem oddly disconnected from their subject-- down home Mississippi. Even so, this is a great book.

Each volume in this series gets better and better. Unlikely alliance of ex-Confederate cavalryman, ex-Union gunboat captain and prostitute get their man, save President Grant and show up the Pinkertons. Suspenseful, well written, good character developement. Highly recommended for all period buffs especially but a great, quick read for everyone.

"Oil in the Deep South" begins with a well written, enlightening, and thorough review of the early history of the petroleum industry, which is very effective in providing a context for the main subject of the book. Similarly, throughout the book, events outside of Alabama and Mississippi are discussed in context with their effect on the Alabama/Mississippi oil industry. Many maps, diagrams, and tables are very effective in enhancing the presentation. Even so, the subject matter and the detail in which it is treated makes this admirable work primarily a reference for specialists, and not a light read for a general audience. A glossary could have helped make this work a more accessible to a slightly wider audience. The limitation of the scope to "up to 1945", greatly reduces the potential utility and interest in this work. It simply leaves readers hanging. Surely one or two chapters could have brought the book up to, say 1995. Even a short "summary to the Present" of 3 or 4 pages would have been appreciated. Apparently, even the author felt this has he provides summary sentences describing the ultimate number of wells and production of fields in Mississippi subsequent to 1945 and mentions post-1945 discoveries in passing. The book concentrates on Mississippi, but covers Alabama nearly as thoroughly. There are only two petroleum fields in Florida, so the challenge to cover Florida just as thoroughly is trivial, but this challenge is not met. This neglect is also evidenced by several trivial, but annoying errors, in the discussion about Florida. Only 2 or 3 pages based on 2 or 3 readily available (free) Florida Geological Survey publications, could have made the Florida coverage comparable to Alabama/Mississippi.

This book is for anyone who loves dogs or who wishes to know a little more about the time-honored tradition of field trials for dogs. Carroll Seabrook has written a chronicle of the training of "Miss Dot," a U.S. and Canadian field trial champion. This wonderful animal endures other trials on her way to becoming a champion including theft, an airplane crash, and loss of her sense of smell for several years. This story will thrill children, dog lovers of all ages and sportsmen

Before Eudora Welty was a published writer, she was a semi-professional photographer. The "snapshots" (her term) in this book are eloquent images in themselves; Welty's accompanying essay, though brief, is excellent.

Ordinarily this would be more than enough for me to recommend the book. But in this case, there's a much better collection of these photos for you to own. _Eudora Welty Photographs_, also published by University of Mississippi press, includes the hundred photos collected here plus about eighty others. Although it lacks Welty's introductory essay, it more than compensates with a tribute from Reynolds Price and an in-depth interview. The photo reproduction is superior as well. So skip _One Time, One Place_ and buy _Eudora Welty Photographs_ instead.

This book tells the story of the outlaws of the early West (western Kentucky, southeastern Illinois, and Tennessee from around 1795 to 1820). These men were not the gun-toting, bank-robbing criminals of the Wild West but were highway robbers and river pirates who most often wielded knives and axes. They preyed on pioneers living in isolated cabins in the wilderness and on traders coming down the Ohio River on flatboats or traveling inland along wilderness trails.

Most of these criminals at one time or another used Cave-in-Rock as their headquarters. This huge cave, on the Illinois side of the lower Ohio River, is about 85 miles below Evansville, Indiana.

The most notorious of all the criminals of this time and place were the two Harpe brothers, who were said to kill men, women, and children simply to gratify a lust for cruelty. One story epitomizes the brutality of their exploits: Traveling through western Kentucky, the Harpes came to a cabin, where they found only a mother and her baby, the husband being off hunting. They asked to spend the night, and the next morning they asked the woman to prepare breakfast for them. She consented to do so but said that it would take her some time because her child was not well and she had no one to nurse it. The men then said that she should put the baby in its cradle and they would rock it while she cooked. After the woman had served their breakfast, she went to the cradle to see if the child was asleep, expressing some astonishment that her child should remain quiet for so long a time. She found the infant lying breathless, its throat cut from ear to ear.

"Outlaws of Cave-in-Rock" was first published in 1923 and was recently reprinted by Southern Illinois University Press. Historians, amateur and professional, will value this book interesting for the light it sheds on a period of the nation's history that has received too little attention.

In Poor Whites of the Antebellum South, Charles Bolton effectively reveals the economic, social, and political complexity of landless white tenants and laborers in antebellum North Carolina and Mississippi. Through census and tax records, court and insolvent debtor documentation, and personal accounts, the lives of Old South poor whites paint a picture that tells far more of their dynamic story than does the stereotypical label "white trash." Bolton focuses on four counties of the South: Randolph and Davidson counties in the central Piedmont of North Carolina and Pontotoc and Tishomingo counties in northeast Mississippi. Arguably the most notable characteristic of the poor whites was their mobility and versatility. Many of them made frequent relocations because of their need to look for employment and the desire to make economic advancements. Poor whites, such as Edward Isham, possessed a wide range of marketable skills since the slave labor in the South made long-term jobs hard to find. Although the most common occupation was a tenant farmer or farm laborer, some poor white males worked as railroad workers, miners, and stock drivers. The wives of these men, like the yeomen, were responsible for many domestic chores, as were the children; however, unlike the yeomen, many poor white women worked outside the home. The meager wages of the poor whites gave them enough money to pay for food, but personal property was scarce (the lack of material possessions facilitated their frequent moves). With regards to the slave society of the antebellum South, poor whites basically disrupted the line between white independence and black dependence. Free blacks and poor whites had many things in common, being as they represented the backbone of the South's workforce - often working side by side in the fields. Both of the groups had horrible clothing, substandard housing, and unhealthy food. Some free blacks and poor whites even engaged in the illegal exchanging of goods such as liquor, while others gathered to gamble, drink, or make love. However, factors such as white racism, kinship ties, religion, and mobility, prevented the development of any political alliance between landless whites and blacks. Between 1830 and 1850, many poor whites began moving to the southwest frontier of the cotton kingdom in hopes of acquiring wealth and land. For the most part, however, poor white emigrants failed to become landowners. The unfortunate story of Benjamin Scarborough, whose dreams of becoming a landowner, was more common than the rags to riches story of Thomas Allred. In Mississippi, for example, the poor whites had several unpromising options: they could obtain the worst land in the area, they could travel elsewhere, or they could live as squatters or tenants on decent land owned by speculators and wealthy planters. Most of them pressed farther west towards Texas and Arkansas, but few found prosperity. Overall, this book is an interesting and comprehensive look at the lives of poor whites of the antebellum South. Bolton's strongest tool in making his presentation is his use of individual stories. The tales of the various poor whites supplies powerful imagery for the reader, and without these personal accounts the book would not be as effective.

In the steamboat era, St. Louis, Gateway to the West, was the fourth largest city in the US, while Chicago was little more than a crossroads. If one were to write a history, the first chapter would be the story of the railroad system built by the State of Missouri. It included a network of roads--Missouri Pacific, Frisco, Iron Mountain, and North Missouri (Wabash)-designed to fan out across the state bringing all traffic to St. Louis. Stock was sold to land owners and county governments, who hoped railroads would increase the value of land-locked land. Bonds were guaranteed by the state.

But Chicago interests, unencumbered by threats of Civil War, won the competition. Backed by Boston financiers, they completed the Hannibal and St. Joseph (CB&Q) across the state before completion of any of the state railroads. Along the way, 43 were killed on the inaugural run of the Missouri Pacific when a bridge over the Gasconade River collapsed. Those killed included some of the most progressive boosters in the state. The state railroads went bankrupt. The state assumed their debts. Missourians paid twice for their railroads. Costs that were scandalous in construction of the Transcontinental Railroad through mountainous terrain, were paid quietly by Missourians for railroads built through their rolling hills.

In the second chapter, Missouri interests hoped that Kansas City or St. Joseph would be selected as the Eastern terminus of the Transcontinental Railroad. Possibly a Southwestern route would be built from Kansas City that would avoid the difficulties of keeping a railroad passable through the mountains in Winter. Again Chicago interests won. Omaha was selected (and railroad building across Iowa took off with vigor).

Jackson's volume describes the third chapter. Chicago had built a drawbridge across the Mississippi at Davenport, IA, in 1855, but it was destroyed by a steamboat collision and fire in 1856. A young Abraham Lincoln represented the railroad in a lawsuit filed against the bridge company (and supported by St. Louis interests). He won the argument that bridges must permit free passage of both railroads and steamboats. Now forces were building to build more Iowa bridges. St. Louis needed a bridge to compete, but the Mississippi in St. Louis is a much more formidable obstacle and bridge building was still a primitive art. Enter James Eads, not really an engineer, but a charismatic, accomplished, doer of projects. He had backing from Pennsylvania Railroad interests (the leading US railroad, whose tracks ended on the East side of the river at St. Louis). Active in the bridge project were president, J. Edgar Thompson, vp Thomas Scott, and Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie is best known as the builder of what became US Steel in Pittsburgh, but he began his career at the Pennsylvania Railroad, where his business skills were noted. He was protege to Thomas Scott. In the Eads' Bridge story, he was present as representative of Keystone Bridge, a private company founded by Pennsylvania Railroad interests to specialize in the construction of iron bridges especially for railroads. Keystone constructed the bridge to James Eads' design.

Author Jackson notes the Pennsylvania Railroad's interest in the Texas Pacific and the Northern Pacific as well as the Atlantic and Pacific (Frisco) and North Missouri (Wabash) in Missouri and suggests this indicates a desire to build a transcontinental railroad system. Its more likely the Pennsylvania thought it important to take care of its feeder lines. Railroads make their money on ton miles. Freight that runs the length of the system is most profitable. Therefore, its important for an East-West system like the Pennsylvania to maintain relationships with lines to the West so they can swap traffic. They do this with personal relationships, and by lending management expertise (as board members) and prestige to assist with financing-preferably without investing the railroad's own capital.

In an age of Enron and Adelphia, its interesting to see the ethics involved in some of the transactions. Robber barons like Jay Gould are known to have bled railroads dry while operating them in bankruptcy. Usually this was accomplished by executives personally owning businesses that sold key supplies to their own railroad-coal, railroad ties, bridges, etc. Profitable construction companies was the device used in the Credit Mobile scandal related to the Transcontinental Railroad. The book suggests that executives of the Pennsylvania Railroad also engaged in these self-dealing practices, practices that would be considered unethical today.

The book tells the full details of the construction of the bridge including the use of caissons to sink the pier foundations to bedrock and the discovery of the bends as the affliction of workers who worked in high air pressure and decompressed quickly. The bridge is mostly iron but used some of the first steel, and fabrication of this steel was troublesome. Numerous difficulties were encountered. The book includes copious illustrations. Its well written and tells the story well.

The book ends in chapter four of our railroad history. Jay Gould becomes the owner of most Missouri railroads and leasee of the Eads' Bridge. He assembled the structure (after years of delay) that finally created a terminal railroad association to construct the first Union Station and the necessary trackage to connect the bridge and the railroads of St. Louis. Other sources indicate Jay Gould's railroad empire in Missouri was assembled to force admission to the Iowa Pool, a revenue sharing arrangement for the lines that connected with the Transcontinental Railroad. He failed in that aspect, but succeeded in being a robber baron, though his empire collapsed soon after his death.

In the end, Eads' Bridge probably came too late to have much impact on the St. Louis-Chicago competition. It did alleviate a serious bottleneck that otherwise might have been a limitation, but the bridge was expensive, and the tolls charged by Jay Gould were high. According to Jackson, the bridge still had $5MM in bonded indebtedness recently-even now long after it is obsolete, but it still is a much deserved landmark to the Spirit of St. Louis.