Steamboats

When is a steamboat not a steamboat? When it's a measuring stick for how society's doing. And let's just say that the less steamboating steamboats do in this book, well, the rougher things are in the grand old U.S. of A.

See, steamboats are the life of the Mississippi, and we can follow the course of the war through their fate. In April 1861, the Southern boat that brings Delphine and Calinda to Grand Tower is described as opulently as one of Delphine's dresses:

The Rob Roy blazed with lamplight that lit the water around it. The paddle wheel churned in reverse. The gangplank was already down. I'd never set foot on a big boat. To me a riverboat was a palace. The pair of flaring gold chimney stacks belched flame-colored smoke into the night. Below them the decks glowed like a gingerbread wedding cake. (3.27)

The steamboat reeks of glamour and other lands to Tilly, stopping over just briefly before continuing on its grand adventure. Later, though, steamboat traffic slows as the blockade of the South begins, and steamboats only run from points north of St. Louis. And then, finally, showboats are converted to hospital and troop transport ships. After the Battle of Belmont, Tilly remembers:

We heard music wavering over the water. It was a steam calliope, so one of the warships had once been a showboat. It was playing a funeral dirge, "O Rest in the Lord." The sound of a showboat calliope sending this grieving music on ahead hung ever after in my mind. (13.18)

As the boats change, they mirror society back from the water. And, the reflected picture gets uglier and uglier.