Wicked River: The Mississippi When It Last Ran Wild

by Lee Sandlin

A riveting narrative look at one of the most colorful, dangerous, and peculiar places in America's historical the strange, wonderful, and mysterious Mississippi River of the 19th century. Beginning in the early 1800s and climaxing with the siege of Vicksburg in 1863, Wicked River brings to life a place where river pirates brushed elbows with future presidents and religious visionaries shared passage with thieves. Here is a minute-by-minute account of Natchez being flattened by a tornado; the St. Louis harbor being crushed by a massive ice floe; hidden, nefarious celebrations of Mardi Gras; and the sinking of the Sultana, the worst naval disaster in American history. Here, too, is the Mississippi gorgeous, perilous, and unpredictable. Masterfully told, Wicked River is an exuberant work of Americana that portrays a forgotten society on the edge of revolutionary change.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History, Nature, Audiobook, Science, Travel

354 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 19, 2010

About the author

Lee Sandlin is an award-winning journalist and essayist who was born in Wildwood, Illinois, and grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. He briefly attended the University of Chicago and Roosevelt University before leaving school to travel and write.

He has written feature journalism, historical studies, and music reviews on opera and classical works — mostly for the Chicago Reader, where he was also for many years the TV critic. More recently, he has become a frequent contributor to the Wall Street Journal.

His essay Losing the War, first appeared in 1997, subtitled "World War II has faded into movies, anecdotes, and archives that nobody cares about anymore. Are we finally losing the war?" It has been on university reading lists and praised in blogs of both anti-war activists and neocon crusaders. A segment was adapted for broadcast by the public radio show This American Life and anthologized by its host, Ira Glass in a 2007 collection, The New Kings of Nonfiction.

Saving His Life, is his biography of his father-in-law, a Russian emigre who grew up in China. The Distancers (2004) chronicles the American Midwest of several generations, as reflected in the history of a single house. He has also written Wicked River, a narrative history of the Mississippi River in the 19th century and Storm Kings, a history of tornado chasing; and a revised, expanded version of The Distancers.

Lee passed away unexpectedly on December 14, 2014.

Reviews

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been reading a lot of books about "the West," the West, that is, of the Plains, the Southwest, the Oregon country and California! But the Mississippi River was a frontier --the West--in the late 18th C. into the 19th. As the Age of the Steamboats unfolded after 1812, the great river was as strange and mysterious as any part of America. And considering New Orleans, A Lot more bizarre than other parts of America.
In this very readable book published in 2010, author Sandlin covers the river pirates, the natural disasters, such as the storms and floods, the Civil War siege of Vicksburg, and the worst maritime disaster in US history--the sinking of the steamboat Sultana. I knew a lot about some of the things covered, particularly about Vicksburg and the Sultana. I had not read so much about the Sultana disaster as in this book, which got into the horrific details of what happened.
I knew about the New Madrid Earthquake of 1811, still considered the most powerful earthquake in US history. I did not know there was a series of shocks continuing into 1812. The devastated terrain came back only slowly. But, in the meantime, the westward migration veered around the New Madrid area, not settling there, and that part of Missouri remained deserted for decades. There were accounts of rumbles and trembles going on until the 1840s....
I had never heard of the "Murell excitement" in the pre-Civil War era. A pamphlet became widely distributed that purported to reveal a plot by a "Murell" and a "Mystic Clan" to engineer a slave insurrection in the South. A mass hysteria among the whites resulted in the torturing and killing of blacks. "Murrel's gang" is even mentioned in "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer."
A lot of interesting stories and characters are presented in Sandlin's book. A very enjoyable read!

[Eric_W · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating, if often hyperbolic and disjointed, look at the Mississippi River and especially the communities surrounding it, not to mention the customs and eccentric characters that thrived on the river frontier. It might also be called, the Book of Lists.

I was surprised by the importance of prostitution to communities in the 19th century frontier society. Their importance was so crucial as to be almost "structural." Women were a rarity, often outnumbered by men 20-1, and it was common for some women who wanted to secure their financial future to marry several at once, visiting them on a rotational basis and being provided for. It was a system that suited all parties, apparently. The institution was so crucial to the army, they were imported to all forts, respected and called seamstresses. Brothels in St. Louis could be lavish places and held in high esteem by the community despite ostensible moral antagonism.

Religious camp meetings were immensely popular. One such event pulled a gathering of 20,000 people at a time when the population of New Orleans was about half that. The events became occasions of ecstatic behavior with "jerkings," falling", other kinds of physical religious behavior we would now label pejoratively as "holy rollers." It also included orgies, the sexual component of ecstatic behavior being quite strong, and until the vigilantes moved in to put a lid on it, it was quite common for groups to move off into the woods to consummate their religious fervor resulting in a high birth rate about nine months after the camp meeting.

Corruption was endemic. It was assumed and understood that everyone along the river would cheat, shorting the steamboats on piles of wood, counterfeiting (although very much frowned on it was helped by the number of different banks issuing money, species being quite rare and always in demand.) Con men thrived.

The story of Stewart's pamphlet and John Murrell was fascinating. Stewart had written and published a pamphlet that purported to report on his infiltration into the infamous Murrell gang. Murrell supposedly had revealed to him that Murrell was orchestrating a vast conspiracy that would result in an enormous slave rebellion on July 4th, 1835. The names of many so-called conspirators who belonged to this "Mystic Klan" were fomenting the rebellion were included. The ultimate purpose was so they could rob and pillage virtually the entire south. Always fearful of slaves revolts, the end result of publicity surrounding the pamphlet was the formation of vigilante committees and extensive use of "Lynch Law." Fear of slaves spilled over into antagonism toward river-town gamblers in Vicksburg and soon bodies were hanging from trees on virtually every road. Some people, after interrogation by the "committees," were lucky to get off with 1,000 lashes. Neighbors would inform on neighbors they didn't like and it must have been like scenes out of mob actions of the French Revolution. (Tom Sawyer and Huck talk about looking for "Murel's treasure.")

Lots of really good stories and cultural history. If you are looking for information about the river itself, however, you might be better served by The Big Muddy: An Environmental History of the Mississippi and Its Peoples, from Hernando de Soto to Hurricane Katrina

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wicked River by Lee Sandlin

This a book of Americana surrounding the Mississippi River. I wouldn't call it history because Sandlin is not an historian, but there were some insightful topics that I enjoyed. The timeline for this book is the 19th century.

1. The Surrender of Vicksburg
2. The Sinking of the Sultana
3. The cemeteries of New Orleans
4. The Pirates of Crow's Nest Island
5. The expendable Flatboats
6. The Three Mile Panoramic Painting of the Mississippi.
7. The Confluence of the Missouri and Missisippi. The two rivers (red and green respectively) flow side by side for many miles until mixing into the brown mud downstream.
8. The Earthen Mounds of Natchez and Cahokia
9. The Ice Floes from the frigid North country
10. Eads Bridge

I am a fan of micro-history and of Americana in particular. This book falls in the Americana category and the writing is pretty solid. There are some sections and facts around the Andersonville prisoners who later died in the Sultana disaster that got muddled. The Civil War had ended two weeks prior to the disaster so there was longer any involvement on behalf of the Confederacy handing over prisoners.

I also thought there could have been a stronger focus on the natural aspects of the river itself - there was at the beginning but then it devolved into the ancillary histories which were interesting individually but not so tied to the river in a coherent way.

3.5 stars

[Elaine Nelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A semi-chronological narrative of life along the Mississippi River, primarily before the Civil War, when the river valley was still part of the frontier. It was a dangerous place, both from nature (storms, earthquakes, the river itself) and from other humans (lots of drunkenness and piracy). Includes the origin of the term "lynching", which didn't always mean hanging. Found myself unreasonably amused by the fact that the voyageurs (boatmen, somewhat expendable) were known for their red shirts. Tidbits that I want to use for future D&D games: the Crow's Nest, an island of pirates in the middle of the river, which was destroyed by the New Madrid quakes; Natchez-Under-the-Hill, the sketchy/wild town down by the river, partially built into the bluffs, with the "respectable" town up above. Ends with Mark Twain's last visit to the river, when few boats traveled it, the traffic all having gone to rail, and when the course of the river itself was being tamed; in the epilogue, he revisits the "panorama" paintings that were all the rage in the early 19th century, and how the last one disappeared. (Fittingly, part of it may still be hidden under a wall somewhere in South Dakota.) Very engaging; probably wouldn't have read it if it hadn't been one of the few non-fiction books available in Overdrive, but glad I did anyway.

[Corinne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought I knew all there was to know about the Mighty Mississippi River, especially after reading over 400 pages of the well researched Rising Tide. But this was a wonderful telling of life on the Mississippi River in the 1800s. I particularly liked hearing the details of the siege of Vicksburg and the details of the wreck of the Sultana. Horrible experiences, but part of our history nevertheless. Also, for anyone interested in more about the Sultana, there is a wonderful small museum at Marion AR... A few miles from Memphis, where it happened.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Possibly the most fascinating -- even gripping -- history book I've ever read, easily as difficult to put down as a good piece of fiction. Definitely made me think. An excellent piece of Americana; cannot recommend it enough.

[Pam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful writing. History done right.

[Mark Butt · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's a book, about a river, and how past authors have interpreted it and its place in American history. I was a bit taken aback by the grandiose writing of the author yet it did contain quite a few gems, highlighting the symbolism of it especially during the US expansionist times of the 1800s. His observations of the river of today as simply a dim shadow of its original composition in a physical sense (damming, river re-routing, etc. since it's discovery) was illuminating and forced me to think about how so much of nature has been reshaped by human activity. That said, this was not some book advocating environmental preservation but rather the treatment of the river in US history and folklore. If you're interested in this river yet only know of it in the tales of Mark Twain, I urge you to read this book. However, if you cannot get past the fact that it is, simply put, just another river, skip it. I fell in the latter category, which is why I give this book only a 2 out of 5 rating, not because of poor writing (quite the contrary) but the limited nature of the subject matter.

[Robert Fritz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I grew up in Alton, IL - alongside the Mississippi - and have been a Mark Twain fan since childhood. I thoroughly enjoyed Tom Sawyer as a 10 year old (loved the Norman Rockwell illustrations), Huckleberry Finn as an adult (it is one of the few books that I reread every few years), and a number of his other works. About a decade ago I read his Life on the Mississippi. It left me a bit cold. It felt more like a document and less like a delightful story.
THIS book - tells stories that Twain should have told. I enjoyed each and every chapter. I read it in-between other books which I was reading at the same time and it didn't lose anything. Each time I came back, it grabbed my attention as soon as I began again. Highly recommended.

[Cindi Chipping · Rating 4 out of 5]

My fav MN author William Kent Krueger recommended this, I think he read it prior to writing This Tender Land. It’s a fascinating portrait of the Mississippi from the 1800’s up through the Civil War. Reading it made me wonder how we ever survived - there was so much lawlessness, disease, harsh weather conditions, etc. Overall a pretty interesting read! I definitely learned a lot from it.

[Georgia Dentel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I appreciate the meticulous research and fact-checking that went into this book but it was tedious and needed more narrative, in my opinion. It was interesting to learn about the untamed Missippi and what it must have been like when my great grandparents lived on its banks bank in the 1800's.

[R B · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very good ride on the wicked river.

[John Winkelman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of great, well-researched stories. Bogged down a bit in the minutia from time to time but still a solid read for anyone with even a little connection to the mighty Mississippi.

[Markus · Rating 5 out of 5]

All history books should be like this one. Somehow everything is alive, bursting with excitement, the stories are interesting, funny and entertaining. He relies mostly on writing through perspectives of actual people that he derives from memoirs and tellings of the stories from other sources. Accounts of random bystanders and famous people back in the day are sprinkled in here and there in just the right amount.

I like the history of the American South, it’s nature and the wild freedom of it and picked this one up to experience the nostalgia of the lost times that I’ll never get to live through. Sandlin resurrects this world in all its glory and it’s wonderful.

It’s about the Mississippi River around the time of early United States before and after the Civil war in the 19th Century. Masses of people were floating around the river in basically gigantic wooden coffins, in rafts and barges that could somehow carry many tons of weight. There were river pirates, Indians and angry river people you had to look out for if you wanted to stay alive. If you fell in you could die easily due to the turbulences beneath the muddy surface or of hypothermia as the main current was icy cold even in the summer. There were three meter tall grasslands in the banks that seemed safe but people got lost in them and their corpses turned out months later.

There were no trustworthy maps, the river changed constantly and quickly. There was a man who went to sleep on one bank and woke up on the other side of the river as it had changed course overnight and his property was now on the opposite bank of the river. That meant all his slaves had automatically been emancipated as the river was the boundary line between states – on one side of the river was a slave state and a free state on the other side.

To illustrate how god damn cool these people were back in the day, there was an apocalyptic storm that passed over a town called Natchez-on-the-hill, killing 300 people and tearing down most of the buildings. There was a missionary man in town called Timothy Flint, whose story the author is following in one chapter and the following is his account of the storm:

“I found myself alive though much bruised and crushed, and a nail had gone through my hat and grazed my temple, so as to cause some bleeding.” About his son, he said only that he lost his hat.

These people were just in the zone and going about their business, this kind of mentality seems amazing and admirable to me.

There are lots more amazing and funny stories, they progress chronologically following the era of the steam boats, the civil war, the emancipation of the slaves and the era of the trains but the main focus is always on these fascinating stories and you end up absorbing history automatically.

I am reminded of how Lincoln was not really the deity he's made out to be. If the Civil War was really about slavery they could have instead just bought out the slaves from the south just like every country on earth did it except for Haiti and the United States. It would have cost many times less than the war and prevented the worst tragedy ever to happen on US soil. The Civil War was more so about increasing the dictatorial power of the Federal Government and birthed the beginnings of the massive military-industrial complex that today steals more money from tax paying citizens than even an actual black hole could. Good job, Mr. Lincoln!

[Megan Hueble · Rating 4 out of 5]

This will be so helpful for my Huck Finn essay!! But in seriousness this was super interesting & did kinda round out my reading of both Huck Finn & James.

[Pseudonymous d'Elder · Rating 5 out of 5]

__________________________________
Now and then we had the hope that if we . . .
were good, God would let us be pirates .--Mark Twain.
___________________________________

You may not think that a history of a river will be one of the most enthralling books you have read in a long time. But you might be pleasantly surprised.

I have a personal link to the Mississippi. When I was a boy, back in the 1950s, my grandmother ran a restaurant on the bluffs overlooking the river in the small Northern Illinois town of New Boston. In this tiny hamlet, the great Sac/Fox war chief, Blackhawk allegedly warned a white settler he was friendly with to clear out of area when the so called Blackhawk War began. Abraham Lincoln laid out the original plats of New Boston himself, and there was a plaque in front of Grandma’s restaurant saying so. And it was here that during the summers, my cousins and I, like young Sam Clemens (aka, Mark Twain) and his creations Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, played pirates and Indians along the mighty river’s shores.

Even if you didn’t grow up around the Mississippi, you will find many great historical stories in Wild River. Here is just a sample of what you can expect.

It wasn’t just 10-year-old boys who roved these muddy seas. In the early 19th century, the river was plagued by actual pirates who, when a raft or keelboat floated by their lairs, would swarm out to board it and leave nothing but bodies floating downstream toward New Orleans.

Before the river pirates, and indeed before the tribes of Plains Indians that we are familiar with, were the Mound Builders, an advanced civilization that once occupied most of the Mississippi Valley and who had disappeared long ago with little evidence of whom they were and why they disappeared. 19th Century scholars were baffled by their mere existence.

And then there was John Murrell (AKA, the Great American Land Pirate) who was believed to be the leader of a band of thieves, cutthroats, and slave stealers that operated along the Big Muddy. The gang (which called itself The Mystic Clan) reputedly had 300 - 1000 members and was greatly feared. In Twain’s novel Tom Sawyer, Tom worried that the treasure he and Huck Finn found had been buried there by the Murrell Gang.

While Murrell was no doubt a bad man, he eventually became the victim of the original QANON conspiracy theories. Someone named Stewart published a pamphlet claiming that Murrell was planning to foment a slave uprising that would take place July 4, 1835, which would slaughter the all the white men in the slave states, and that would lead to Murrell taking over the South and becoming its Emperor. This absurd tale was widely believed in the South and led to the 100s of slaves and free blacks being savagely tortured to make them confess to being part of the conspiracy and then hanged. Many white people who had shown some compassion for the slaves received much the same treatment. Soon, innocent strangers who were just passing through Southern towns on legitimate business were being arrested by the vigilante committees and found guilty in the courtrooms of Judge Lynch.

I feel, however, that I have to criticize of the Proto-QANON conspiracy stories I mentioned above. Not once in that "grandmother of all of QANON" pamphlet was Murrell and his fellow conspirators accused of eating babies with pizza in Satanic rites. But maybe I’m being too critical. Maybe the people back in the 19th century were just too smart to fall for a tale like that.

[David Quijano · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can’t recall where I heard about Wicked River: The Mississippi When It Last Ran Wild by Lee Sandlin, but I am guessing it was from a podcast. This book follows the history of the Mississippi River Valley through a series of stories that help build a coherent narrative of the region mostly during the 1800's. I didn’t have any real expectations but was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed this book.

For one, I loved the subject matter which is why I decided to read this book in the first place. The Mississippi River has always captured my imagination. This definitely comes from reading Mark Twain as a kid. And sure enough, Wicked River spends a decent amount of time on Twain. Apparently, I am not the only person to get nostalgic about the Mississippi River based on Twain’s books. In fact, by the time he wrote Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, Twain’s portrayal of the Mississippi was already several decades removed from reality and more closely resembled the river when he was a boy.

Reconciling Twain’s nostalgic portrayal of an untamed Mississippi River with the modern reality of a regulated and somewhat obsolete river is what much of this book is about. The author has several interesting anecdotes that reveal the wild nature of the Mississippi Valley in the early days. Many of the stories told in this book were less than flattering. America has plenty to be proud of, but accurate history also has its fair share of gritty, embarrassing, and ugly episodes. These descriptions reminded me of what we think of when we hear about the wild west: lawlessness, alcoholism, conartists, pandemics, prostitution, lynchings, duels, and moderate to severe genocide. Add on to that slavery and the American caste system that accompanied it and the region was a complete mess.

It might sound depressing, but I didn’t view it that way. The author does a good job of portraying the negative without being a downer. Overall I liked this book a lot. It was more of a casual read and at no point did the story ever get too heavy or detailed. It was more of a casual, fun read. I would especially recommend this book to anyone who idolizes American history or the American South in general. Four stars for being fun, but informative though probably not profound enough for a fifth star.

[Res · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tales of life along the Mississippi between 1800 and the Civil War. Each chapter retells one event (the great New Madrid earthquake, the siege of Vicksburg) or the life of one person.

This is a fascinating look at an alien world, where people would boat past the body of a red-shirted voyageur bobbing in the current and pay no more attention than we pay to a dead raccoon on the side of the road -- where boats would pull up to the shore at nightfall and become a floating village with dance halls and brothels and laundry services, then separate at dawn and in some cases never get within hailing distance of each other again.

Warning: it's the kind of book that annoys the person sitting next to you, because it's hard to resist saying, "Wow, listen to this ..."

[Hannah 🪔 · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really engaging, visual read full of some of the most bizarre-yet totally true!-anecdotes you'll ever read. Sandlin is an expert at making history an exciting experience for the reader; while the book ends with pages upon pages of notes and sources, the body of the book is not muddled with footnotes and technicalities that distract you from the stories that he relates.

[AnnaLadd · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 Stars

Non-fiction is usually a no-go for me, but the way Lee Sandlin writes these books is so vivid and beautiful that I can’t imagine ever reading another book like it.

Wicked River wasn’t quite as good as Storm Kings, but I’m pretty sure that’s just because I am not obsessed with the Mississippi River (at least I wasn’t before this book) like I am with tornadoes. Whole Storm Kings caught my breath at every page, this book was capable of holding my attention and giving me chills yet was a slow read. I think I’ve been reading it for one and a half- maybe two years? Usually before I go to bed (though I took nearly a year long break until recently). But Storm Kings I couldn’t read before I went to sleep because I would be too invested!

Whenever I finish a Lee Sandlin book I just wonder how I will ever find any book that measures up to it. A book full of history and well researched facts yet also has poetry on every page. Somehow he is able to write non fiction in the most gorgeous way you can imagine. Yet he doesn’t ever seem to be stretching anything. A lot of times when people try to turn something factual and boring into something whimsical and romantic it falls flat. Like any time people use physics to explain emotions or fate etc etc it’s so forced. But there is nothing like that in these books.

Since there is no set plot really in having a difficult time writing this review. Just know that I loved this book. I have a deep respect for this author and I pray that he will write more nonfiction like Wicked River and Storm Kings. Also if you have read anything that compares to these books please let me know! I need more!


100% physical book

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

The river and its array of tributaries is a perpetual faucet of tragedy and meandering yarns. It is indeed wicked and unforgiving, particularly prior to being dredged, fitted for locks and engineered to ensure flood prevention in critical junctures (though it still floods obviously). But this is not an engineering tale, rather it is a sojourn into the river's past; the days when the river cut a swath through the Midwest on down to the brackish Bayou in the 19th century as a liquid highway of commerce, both material and human, and played a vital role as a conduit in Civil War strategy. The Mississippi bore its share of water bound highwaymen, myths and mystery. Who was the real Mike Fink? And John Murrell? Who were the mound builders? It's no coincidence, Mark Twain spent a considerable amount of time penning a written love affair with the thundering current of this natural wonder. When the tales of the book subsided, a virtual postscript of Twain concluded that as many river folk that he would run into optimistic about revitalizing the river, he would encounter an equal number that espoused the theory that it could not be done. Twain's quote, "You may vaccinate yourself with deterrent facts as much as you please it will do no good; it will seem to 'take,' but it doesn't; the moment you rub against any one of those theorists, make up your mind that it is time to hang out your yellow flag." The river only flows one way in all its metaphor and castless ballast, it cannot be surmounted in its currency and will. No real sense in arguing about it for the ages won't be stilled. Ahead of his time that Samuel Clemens.

[Grant Beardslee · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a fairly chaotic read, each chapter being a different story relating to life on the Mississippi. Many of the stories were extremely interesting and this definitely did not read like a textbook. However, there was certainly not an overarching narrative and is probably most useful as reference material.

Overall it was an enjoyable read and I’m glad I pushed through.

[Corey · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very colorful, fun, and immersive look at a legendary mythological era and place in American history. If you don’t like this book you might consider a ride on the Sultana in the summer of 1865…

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

This may be one of the most important books I've read in a long time, especially in the history genre. Author Lee Sandlin expertly crafted an intriguing work about the "mighty Mississippi" to read like a gripping novel about its physical traits and the people who populated its crest and shores, who conducted business -- both legitimate and nefarious -- during the wild period before it was "tamed" by modern controls. Those people included, among the planters, warehousemen and farmers dispersed along its great liquid highway, the culture that Mark Twain described as "joyous and reckless crews of fiddling, song-singing, whiskey-drinking, breakdown-dancing rapscallions," and who he opined were replaced, in the years following the Civil War, with the small crews of "quiet, orderly men, of a sedate business aspect, with not a suggestion of romance about them anywhere."

Amazingly, Sandlin created this magnificent story with a copious amount of well-documented research from sources penned during the times and places contemporaneous to his subject, giving the reader a look at a period unfiltered by modern viewpoints and interpretations.

Why is this work so important? Because, in my opinion, Sandlin's sweeping and masterful panorama ties the specific historical themes and trends of the Mississippi River's culture to the much larger picture of national, and even world, events, trends and views and the historical movements growing out of them.

A superb masterpiece!

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wicked River shows us the life on the Mississippi that Mark Twain forgot to mention in his writings. While Twain’s stories were entertaining they were “G” rated. Sandlin’s book is a PG-13 - sex, violence, high adventure, and low life...it's all here.

Read this and you’ll be entertained and informed. We often see the Mississippi as the river that roughly divides our nation’s east and west. We often forget that it was once our western frontier. What a wild and free-wheeling frontier it was, with dangers and disease at every bend; pirates, conmen, and hookers powering the economy; and natural disasters galore (i.e. the New Madrid earthquake and the floods)

The brave men and women who ventured onto and around the river in those days were made of the right stuff. Sandlin uses their stories to detail a way of life that flourished only briefly and was, lost forever to war and the onrush of technological civilization.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a kayaker, I have always been frustrated by the Illinois water laws compared to Wisconsin. You can't get out of the water without risking trespassing arrests. After reading this, now I get it! People who worked on the river were so notoriously crooked - thieves, etc. - that they were shot on sight by farmers and their help if seen on land. River people were also always drunk according to these anecdotes. So, no wonder all that worked itself into the state law.

Great stories and research using books I will never be able to find, but would love to read. It gives a great view of how it used to be around here.

The book had tons of great stories, one after another. It wasn't a "can't put it down" book, and I had to remind myself to read it - but I really enjoyed it while I read it. I really didn't know the river's history, and it is really amazing.

[Kris Schnee · Rating 5 out of 5]

A vivid history of the Mississippi River culture of the early 19th century, including the people living there, the river itself as a deadly and ever-changing force, and the way it was presented to outsiders through the early VR-like technology of "panoramas" and the work of Mark Twain. A favorite part for me was the discussion of just how forbidding an environment the river was in the early years, with an entire slang vocabulary that sprang up to describe its hazards (including "sawyers") and entire towns that were established specifically to keep thieving, drunken river-dwellers out of the respectable people's districts just inland.

I read this in the context of Stark's "Astoria", a history of an ill-fated expedition to colonize what's now Oregon, with some overlapping information about early Canadian "voyageur" culture.

[Leah B · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned a surprising amount from this book! In depth history of the Mississippi River region was not covered by California public curriculum, or any collegiate courses in CA, so I was really surprised to learn of the Great Shakes (massive earthquakes in the 1800’s that made the river run backwards), in-depth pirate tales, New Orelans’ role in the Civil War, and this also set the record straight on Mark Twain and the chronology between his books and his life.

This book certainly romanticizes aspects of the river’s history, but I’m here for it! If you’re looking to learn more about the history of the river, railroad and boat travel, the river’s role in the Civil War and more - this is a great, fairly fast read.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you want to learn more about the history of life on the Mississippi, this is a great book. In fact, even if you never thought you wanted to learn about this topic, it's a good introduction to that stretch of water that so much influenced the development of the U.S. Lee Sandlin is an eloquent writer, sometimes downright poetic in a way that's not at all heavy-handed, and ranges over a wide variety of topics. In the end, I was left a little wistful about the taming of this wild and wicked river.

[Rock · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wicked River shares with Old Man River the failure to coalesce into any unified narrative. There just is no reason to read either of these books as a whole. The author here at least infuses his delight in the dark side of the folk history of the river, and the gore (and to a lesser extent sex) spills off the page like a Tarantino movie (Django Unchained, I suppose). But again we have as much a bathroom reader as a history, with no sense of why the place ended up the way it did and few scattered attempts to even paint a portrait of the region.