April 12, 2025 • 38 mins
A rivalry over who should have control over the Mississippi results in more decisions being made that would make the 1927 flood all but inevitable.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
My name is Eric Gaskell, and you're listening to the
Distorted History podcast and program. I didn't give you merry
nails and joy a blunder. Look, I'm radling. I'm not
(00:23):
the Arrah. A long struggle for freedom, it really is
a revolution. Last time, he helped to set the stage
for the nineteen twenty eight Mississippi Fun and the blue
songs that would come out of it by talking about
(00:44):
the decision to alter the environment in and around the
Mississippi by chopping down forrests and replacing the natural prairie
grasses with farms. These changes were important because forrests and
the tall prairie grasses that served to retain water. Without them,
the water that they would have helped to absorb had
to go someplace, which more often than not meant it
eventually ended up in the rivers that fed into the
(01:05):
Mississippi itself, which meant, under normal conditions, more wood than
average was flowing down the Mississippi than it had in
the past. This meant when the river invariably flooded, its
waters would be higher than they had ever been before. Meanwhile,
the areas around the river, especially as they moved further south,
were also being developed, which meant that when the woods rose,
they would be more devastating, simply due to the fact
(01:27):
that more people were living and farming around the river
than ever before. Now, to be clear, people weren't completely
unaware of this danger, and indeed there was a push
for the federal government to do something as a way
of controlling and or preventing such devastating floods. To that end,
the Garment had commissioned a study of the river. This study, however,
fell prey to a growing competition between the Army's Corps
(01:50):
of engineers and civil engineers through upstar arrivals. Chosen to
lead up the Army's efforts was one Andrew Atkinson Humphreys,
a particularly ambitious individual who so all this as his
opportunity to make a name for himself. However, he threw
himself so completely into his work these train ultimately caused
Humphreys to have a physical and mental breakdown, which led
(02:10):
to him losing the competition to his civil engineer rival,
Charles Ellett Junior. Humphreys, however, did not let this stand
and instead campaign for and won the opportunity to finish
his own study of the river. One in which he
made sure to belittle his rival Alan and his work,
even though he had died during the course of the
Civil War. That being said, it has to be noted
(02:30):
that both of these studies had rejected the so called
levee's only theory of controlling the river. You see, there
are two basic ways of dealing with a flood. You
have levees that hold back the rising water, while outlets
give the water someplace to drain. The levee's only theory, however,
held that not only were levies the only answer, but
by using only levees and preventing the river from draining
(02:51):
into outlets, it would focus the river's flow, which in
turn would effectively carve out its own riverbed, thereby making
the river itself deeper and thus capable of holding even
more water, which in turn made it less likely to flood. Yet,
as I said, both studies of the Mississippi had concluded
that this would not happen. The thing was, Humphries could
not apparently bring himself to fully agree with his rival, who,
(03:14):
while recommending the use of both levees and outlets, had
ultimately concluded that outlets were the best answer to dealing
with floods. Humphreys then rejected the idea of constructing new
outlets as being too expensive, and instead recommended the construction
of higher and stronger levees. That being said, he maintained
that shutting off the river's natural outlets, like the levees
only theory demanded, would be a mistake. Yet, even though
(03:36):
he time and again had dismissed and contradicted the levees
only theory, Humphries threw his actions both theory in recommending
only the construction of levees, and what he would do
down the line would unintentionally crack the door open for
the levees only theory to return. In the meantime. However,
since Humphrey's survey was hailed far and wide for its
detailed and thoroughness, Humphries, in eighteen sixty six would be
(03:58):
named the Army's Chief of Venginace. Now empowered, Humphrey's word
became law on the Army's Corps of Engineers. Indeed, it
said he accepted no criticism from within his ranks, and
nor would he accept any rivals to his authority, whether
from within the core or from the upstart civil engineers. However,
his dominance in the realm of engineering, and in particular
concerning the Mississippi River would soon be challenged. And it
(04:21):
was this challenge in the way Humphreys reacted to it,
that would help to make it. Soon the Levy's only
theory would come to define how the Mississippi River was
dealt with for decades to come. A turn of events
and all but ensured the nineteen twenty seven flood would
be catastrophic. However, before I get into the story of
Humphrey's latest rival, first, like always, I want to acknowledge
my sources for this series, which include Richard M. Mazelne
(04:44):
Junior's Backwitter Blues, The Mississippi Flood of nineteen twenty seven
in the African American Imagination, John M. Berry's Rising Tide,
the Great Mississippi Flood of nineteen twenty seven and How
It changed America, and Susan Scott Perishes the Flood Year
nineteen twenty seven, a cultural he history, and like always,
a full list of these and any other sources like
websites that I used, will be available on his podcast
(05:06):
Blue Sky and Cofee pages plus for anyone who doesn't
want to be bothered skipping through commercials. There is always
an ad free feet available to subscribers at patreon dot
com slash Distorted History. And with all that being said,
let's begin. Humphrey's latest rival was a man named James Buchanan.
Eads may highly accomplished and respected individual. Indeed, the Scientific
(05:27):
American in eighteen seventy six would call him a quote
mandam genius of industry and of incorruptible honor. He would
also be awarded the Albert Medal in eighteen eighty four
by Britain's Royal Society of Arts, and in nineteen thirty two,
deans of American colleges of Engineering would declare him to
be one of the five greatest engineers of all time.
Eads then would prove to be a serious challenge, even
(05:50):
to the lives of the head of the Army Corps
of Engineers now. Eads had his first encounter with the
Mississippi in the winter of eighteen thirty three, when he
was just thirteen years old. At the time, young Aids
was traveling on a steamboat to Saint Louis with his
mother and two sisters. The journey seems to have been
fairly uneventful until just as they were about to reach
the dock, the steamers boilers suddenly exploded, causing the boat
(06:13):
to sink rapidly, which in turn pulled those on board,
including Aids and his family, into the river. Luckily, Aids,
his mother, and his sisters would all survive, but he
would never forget that experience or the taste of the
money wad are in his mouth. While they had managed
to escape that disaster with their lives, the factor remains
that the Aids family was poor, and so young James
(06:33):
was forced to stop attending school shortly after this so
he could go to work to help support the family instead. This, however,
was not the end of his education, as Aids kept
learning doing so thanks to the owner of the mercantile
house he worked for, a man who was so impressed
by young Aid's intelligence he regularly loaned him whatever books
from his collection that took his interest. Aids in particular
(06:54):
was drawn to math and geometry, subjects which likely helped
him when he began constructing working models assault mills, fire engines,
and steamboats, all complete with miniature engines and boilers, the
last one in particular being an interesting choice considering how
he and his family had arrived in Saint Louis, something
I likely would not have even mentioned were it not
for the fact that the first business that Aids would
(07:15):
start up was a salvage business operating on the Mississippi.
As you see that ADS recognized that riverboats like the
one he and his family had taken to Saint Louis,
in addition to regularly suffering from fires and barler exposures
like the one he was so intimately familiar with, also
often ran a foul of other hazards like giant whirlpools,
unseen suck in debris, possibly from ships that had experienced
(07:36):
barler exposures, and even the occasional pirate. Yet, despite there
being a fairly obvious need for such a service, Aid's
salvage business would be the first of its kind operating
on the Mississippi. This was largely due to the fact
that the river was so muddy and so powerful it
was next to impossible to find anything once it dropped
below the surface, which meant once a sank you can
(07:57):
no longer see where a ship had wrecked. Plus, the
currents were powerful enough they could easily drag the sunken
boat away and are buried under sand. In spite of
all these hurdles, Eid's business would be a highly successful one,
in no small part due to the specialized equipment that
Aids himself designed for the task. As in addition of
specialized boats based upon ones used to remove obstructions like
(08:18):
sunken logs from the river, Eads also designed a diving
belt to allow men to work under the water. In fact,
EIDs himself would be the first man to ever use
his invention, as he utilized it to fulfill his very
first contract, which was to salvage several hundred tons wead
in doing this in numerous other jobs in the coming years,
Eads came to know quite a bit about the river,
(08:40):
as by doing so, he was able to experience the
river and feel its currents in a way no other
individual had. Eads then seemingly became obsessed with the Mississippi.
It's like whatever it was that started when he first
was sucked into the river when the boat exploded in
Saint Louis just got worsey more he plunged its depths. Indeed,
even as his business grew an, he was overseeing a
(09:01):
veritable fleet of salvage boats Aids would often still personally
be the one diving into the Mississippi and conducting these
salvage operations. Nothing, it seemed, could pull him away from
the river, not the success of his business, nor his
wife after they got married. Indeed, after his son died
and his wife Martha fell ill, EIDs would continue to
dedicate his time and energy to the river. Not even
(09:22):
Martha's death, which left to me a thirty two year
old widowerd charged with the care of two baby daughters,
could probably Aids away from the Mississippi, as he instead
left his daughters in the care of his sister in
law so he could go back to work. It wouldn't
be until a year after his wife's death that Aids
finally stopped diving into the Mississippi, and only doing so
then because of ill health. All this effort, however, had
(09:45):
left EIDs quite a rich man, as when he eventually
retired from the salvage business altogether a year later, he
had a personal fortune of at least five hundred thousand dollars,
which is probably somewhere in the neighborhood of eighteen million
dollars today. In addition to being rich over the years,
Eads had made numerous connections with other powerful figures, as
he was well acquainted with publishers, businessmen, politicians, and bankers. Yet,
(10:09):
even though he was able to form these alliances, Aids
would still most often be described as a hard man,
an unbending figure, and the type of man who, once
he decided to do something, was unfledging in his pursuit
of that goal. This can be seen during the course
of the Civil War, as Aids was crucial and arguing
for the construction of ironclad warships they could then be
used to take control of the Mississippi and thereby split
(10:31):
the Confederacy. In addition to arguing for their construction, Aids
would also convince the government to give him the contract
to build seven such ironclad gunboats, doing so despite not
having a shipyard, a factory, a machine shop, a foundry,
or even the lumber necessary to build such ships. Yet
still he managed to find and pull together all these
necessary resources to accomplish his task, doing so even when
(10:54):
the government failed to pay him as promised. Then, despite
the government not coming through on their end of the deal,
Eads still delivered his ironclad warships to the At the
time little known General Ulysses S. Grant. It was then
largely thanks to the help of Eid's fleet, which Aids
had more or less commanded, as he still technically owned
the ships, that Grant was able to force the Surrenderer Force,
(11:16):
Henry and Donaldson conquest that represented some of the first
major Union victories of the war. Aids would eventually go
on to build twenty five ships in total, plus he
even designed a rotating steam driven gun to it that
he Nivy considered to be superior to the one that
had been used in the Monitor, which had not been
one of Eid's constructions. By the end of the war,
this service to his country helped to make James Eads
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one of the most prominent and powerful men in the
Mississippi Valley, a reality that did not sit well with
Humphreys nor the Army Corps of Engineers, as they wanted
sole control over the river. As such, when Aids proposed
and got permission to build a bridge over the river
at Saint Louis, the Army objected to the project. Now,
to be fair, this was a revolutionary project that Aids
(11:59):
was posing, as the bridge he was intending to build
would have the longest arches ever constructed for such a purpose. Plus,
he was also intending to build the bridge out of steel,
something that had never been attempted before. Indeed, the British
had even forbidden the use of such materials in their
bridge constructions. Ghetto was not for any of these reasons,
and Humphreys and the Army's Corps of Engineers were objecting
(12:22):
to the bridge's construction. Instead, their real motivation had to
do with Aids, effectively challenging them on another issue concerning
the Mississippi. You see, the mouth of the Mississippi had
long been played by the issue of sandbars, which interfered
with the passage of ships, a problem that the Corps
of Engineers had at this point been battling for forty
years to no success. It was then their latest plan
(12:43):
to deal with these sand bars that would be the
source of their latest issue with Ads. As you see,
the Army had declared that these sand bars were a
permanent barrier, and so instead of trying to remove them,
they were intending to build a canal to bypass them altogether. Eads,
though believed that such a plan was unnecess he had,
after all, previously dealt with sandbars near Saint Louis. From
(13:04):
his experience, then, a system of jennies that ran out
into the Gulf of Mexico would narrow the river's current
enough to thereby cut through the sandbars and allow passage
without having to build a canal. Humphreys, though, saw the
very fact that AIDS had vocally disagreed with his Corps
of Engineers as a personal insult and a challenge. Now
Humphries did not like being challenged generally, but this was
(13:25):
likely seen as especially vexing, as there was talk at
the time of taking control of the river out of
the Army Corps of Engineer's hands and instead transferred those
responsibilities to a newly formed commission that would feature both
representatives from the Army Corps of Engineers and civilian engineers
as well, something that Humphreys very much did not want
to happen. Therefore, the corp would take advantage of a
(13:47):
scoreless complaint that had been filed by a steamboat company
in several Ferries against aids proposed bridge, a complaint that
alleged that the bridge would interfere with steamboats traveling down
the river. However, the real reason for their issue whilst
their businesses would likely be hurt by the bridge, giving
people other options to cross the Mississippi. As such, their
claims that the bridge would hamper ships traveling up and
(14:08):
down the river were quite frankly falls because Ed's plans
for the bridge and met the requirements that had been
set forth by the Senate, which required such bridges to
be a certain height so as to allow ships to
pass underneath of them safely. Yet despite this, Humphrey still
ordered a commission to investigate the bridge, a commission that
he made sure was filled with men who were loyal
(14:29):
to him and against Eaves. This was especially true a
major GK. Warren, who, in addition to his relationship with Humphreys,
was also looking to construct his own railroad bridge that
the one in Saint Louis would compete with. As such,
the hearing was very much just for show, as they
spent two full days listening to individuals who claimed that
(14:49):
the bridge would obstruct navigation, while refusing to give even
an additional day to hear from those who would testify otherwise. Indeed,
Warren would respond to the request to hear from opposing
views by the Claren quote very thousand steamboatmen could come
and say that this bridge was no obstruction. It could
not change my opinion, a statement witchfully illustrated how pointless
(15:10):
this hearing was. The judges had already made up their minds.
There was, however, just one problem for Humphreys and his
corp of engineers, and that was Aids had made quite
the positive impression on Ulysses ask Grant during the war,
as you might recalled, had been his ships that had
been crucial in defeating Forts Henry and Donaldson, victories that
had been a major launching point for a Grant success
(15:31):
in that conflict, a relationship that was especially important now
as Grant was no longer in general but the President
of the United States. So in response to this obvious sham,
Eads went directly to his friend to tell him about
what had happened. President Grant then interceded in this situation
by ordering the army to back down and allow the
(15:51):
bridge construction to proceed. Now, Humphreys would still try to interfere,
but when he did, Aids just ignored him, as he
knew he had President's backing Eads and finished the construction
of his bridge that would allow trains to cross the
river for a century to come, thereby illustrating that, for
all its ambition and innovation, his engineering was sound. This success, however,
(16:13):
would put even more of a target on his back,
as Aids A challenged the Army's Corps of Engineers and
their dominance over the Mississippi River, a challenge that Humphries
talked personally and would not let stand. Despite finishing construction
(16:59):
on his bridge, the conflict between Eads and Humphreys was
far from over. Their issues, however, would no longer be
focused on bridging the Mississippi at Saint Louis. Instead, the
new venue for their conflict would be the issue that
had actually brought each to Humphrey's attention in the first place,
and thereby earned desire. This issue, of course, being the
sand bars had clogged the mouth of the Mississippi, disrupting shipping,
(17:20):
an issue that the Army Corps of Engineers had been
dealing with for decades at this point, with little to
no success. Indeed, not long before this, Humphreys had backed
the use of a pair of massive dredging machines that
had been built explicitly to deal with the uniquely thick
and heavy deposits made by the Mississippi that had proven
so vexing. Now, the first of these two monster judges
was called the Assaians. But the first time it was
(17:43):
dispatched to go deal with the troublesome sand bars, things
did not get off to an auspicious start, what with
its engine breaking down as it attempted to depart from
New Orleans. In other words, it hadn't even gone to
work yet, and it was already experiencing failures. Indeed, it
would try and fail to part twice more before finally
managing to successfully leave port. It then took the massive
(18:05):
dredging vessel two weeks to reach its destination, which may
not sound notable until you realize that a long carriage
simply by the river's current could travel that same distance
in a day and a half. However, it really did
not matter how long and how many tries it had
taken for the dredge to reach its destination. Now that
it was there, all that matter was it what accomplished
(18:26):
the task it had been built explicitly four removing the
sand bars. Indeed, the Massive Dredge would set to work
on the sand bars over the next ten months. Although
the word work may be a bit of an exaggeration
as well. Sure it was at the sand bars for
a significant chunks of time, the dredge wasn't actually functioning. Indeed,
for three whole months the dredge did not do a
(18:47):
single day's work, and for these seven months, when it
actually managed to do something, it was only functional for
one to fifteen days out of each of those months.
In the wake of this staggering failure, the Core decided
that rather than try to remove these sand bars, it
was better to just avoid them altogether by carving out
a new canal for ships to take, which is where
AIDS came into the picture. He thought the construction of
(19:09):
the canal unnecessary, as he believed he could accomplish what
the Army Corps of Engineers had failed to do by
clearing a path through the sand bars. Indeed, he would
bring his alternative plans to Washington to share them with
both reporters and congressmen. According to AIDS, as plan utilizing
jetties would create a shipping channel through these sand bars
that was ten feet deeper than the Corps of Engineers
(19:30):
proposed canal. As such, AIDS would be creating a channel
deep enough to accommodate even the largest ocean going vessels
of the day. Plus he asserted his channel would also
be wide enough to allow multiple ships to pass through
at the same time, in contrast to the proposed canal,
where ships would only be able to pass through single file. Basically,
EIDs was offering a solution that would be superior in
(19:52):
every way to want the Army Corps of Engineers was offering,
and he was promising it would cost three million dollars
less than the canal as well. Then, to swing the
deal even more, Eads promised that if he failed to
accomplish what he promised in one cost of government a dime. Basically,
he was offering to take on all the risk until
his channel had reached a depth deeper than the proposed canal.
(20:13):
Before I go any further, though, I think I should
take a moment to explain a little more about Eid's plan.
You see, he planned to construct a series of jetties
that would concentrate the flow of the river so much
that it would carve out the troublesome sandbars, which does
admittedly sound similar to the levees only theory. However, that
resemblance is only superficial. As you see, levees, by their
(20:34):
nature were built away from the river's edge so as
to block the river from flooding past a certain point,
which meant they only affected the flow of the water
once it start to overflow its natural banks. Therefore, lemmies
could only affect things for part of the year, which
was a big reason why the levees only theory was
never going to work like its supporters thought it would.
(20:55):
When it came to Eads and his jetties, though, they
would be constantly concentrating the river's power, and would be
doing so by aiming the greatly restricted waters onto a
precise area. In other words, yes, levies could increase the
speed of the river's water and by doing so have
a carving out effect. The issue, though, was since they
would only be doing so briefly and weren't really concentrating
the river's flow all that much, they weren't going to
(21:17):
car at the river's bottom so as to prevent flooding,
something which Aids understood just as much as Humphrey's an
alled before him now as tempting his Eid's proposal had
to have been, but with offering a superior solution at
no cost of the government should he fail. The fact
remained that his Gitti's proposal did not have the same
widespread support as the Army Corps of Engineers can now
(21:38):
plan did AIDS. Though as always was determined, the problem
for him was Humphreys was just as determined because he
was convinced that whoever won this conflict would have the
power to determine policy concerning the Mississippi River going forward,
something that was of great concern to Humphreys, especially since
the issue was becoming one of civil versus military engineers,
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as engineers had seized upon the issue as their chance
to at last strip the Army Corps of Engineers of
its unquestioned power, something that the nation's civil engineers believed
desperately needed to be done because the Corps was hopelessly
stuck in the past. You see, even as technology was
changing and advancing at a rapid pace, West Point was
still using the same engineering textbook as it had back
(22:22):
in eighteen thirty seven. Humphreys, though, was not about to
surrender control the Mississippi, much less the pre eminence of
the Army Corps of Engineers. Therefore, he would do everything
in his power to prevent Aids from succeeding, even if
his own men had come to the conclusion that Eide's
plan was a superior approach. Humphries then started putting forth
(22:42):
a series of arguments for why he thought the jetties
wouldn't work. To start with the argue that the river's
mouth was simply too soft to support the weight of
the jetties, meaning they would simply sink and be ineffective.
But even if that didn't happen, he argued that the sandbors,
Aids would be trying to carve his way through actually sound,
hard clay deposits, deposits that had resisted the river's natural
(23:04):
current for years, and so, according to Humphries, not even
the focus flow created by the jetties would be able
to do anything. Then, just in case that also wasn't true,
he argued that the river was just going to rebuild
these sandbars further out, meaning you just had the same
issue again unless you wanted to build jetties endlessly out
into the Gulf of Mexico. Now, Eads, who knew the
(23:26):
river as well, if not better than anyone else, dismissed
all of these claims as being baseless, yet for all
his experience and knowledge of the river, it didn't really
matter what Eyd said, as what actually mattered was who
was Congress going to believe. The answer to that question, however, was,
as it turns out, a bit complicated, as the House
apparently trusted Humphries as they rejected Eid's and as jetties
(23:47):
plan to go with the Army Corps of Engineers in
their canal plan. The Senate, however, flatly rejected the House's proposal,
which eventually led to a compromise that mainly consisted of
handing off this question to someone else, or multiple someone
else's to be precise. As you see, they agreed to
create a Board of Engineers to oversee questions concerning the
Mississippi River. This board would then consist of three members
(24:10):
of the Army Corps of Engineers, three civilian engineers, and
a member of the US Coastal Survey. After six months
of studying this question, the newly created board ultimately voted
six to one in support of jetties, although in doing
so they rejected Eid's plan of constructing them at the
southwest path, where most of the river's waters flowed through
the board. You see believed such a project there would
(24:32):
be too expensive, so they recommended the jetties be built
in the South Pass, which was the smallest and shallowest
of the Mississippi's main outlets. So while look like EIDs
had one, he Stole worried that this change would be
his undoing, as he feared the flow water through the
South Pass would be insufficient for the job at hand. Meanwhile,
Humphreys was not being yet as he was working his
(24:54):
allies in Congress, alleging to them that Eaves plan was
designed to make him excessive profits. They shaped and wrote
the Jenny's Bill in such a way that they will
lead you would have no choice but to reject it. Basically,
in addition to mandating that he had to work in
the South Pass, where he didn't want to and wasn't
confident if his plan would work, they also effectively cut
in half the payment he would receive when he exceeded
(25:16):
the depth of the canal. Essentially, then they were limiting
his reward for accomplishing this feat while also forcing him
to work someplace where he was less confident about his success.
And keep in mind, Eads had more or less stated
both his reputation and his fortune on this being successful,
as he had agreed to fund the entire project until
it had best at the depth of the proposed canal. Yet,
(25:37):
despite all these risks, Heids still accepted the challenge. Indeed,
when he surveyed the South Pass, Eads came away confident
that in spite of this change in venue, he would
still be successful, as while the sandbar in the South
Pass was actually starting to close off that part of
the river, limiting its floe even more, he found that
the sand there was fairly light and thus would be
(25:58):
easy to cut through was a strong enough current. Plus,
he also discovered that there was a strong coastal current
in the region which would sweep away the sand that
they displaced, thereby not allowing it to be depositive. Further outly,
comfreys that claim would happen. That being said, Eid still
had just thirteen months to meet his goals, and before
even getting to work, he first needed to raise money
(26:19):
to fund this project, seeing as out of the agreement
he had made with the government meant he wouldn't be
getting a dime from them until he started to meet
his goals. Aids then went around promising investors that they
would double their money plus ten percent interest. It was
with such guarantees then that Eid started to get some backers,
despite continued interference from Humphreys. With at least money enough
(26:40):
to get started, Eads contracted a company owned by one
James Andrew to conduct the actual work of building in
place in the jetties, a process which cost half as
much as the government had estimated it would cost, and
which allowed them to be produced at a much faster pace.
As you see, the established method of constructing jetties took
two days to construct and launch each section, but their
(27:00):
new method was able to do the same job in
just two hours. So things seemed to be going pretty
well for EIDs and his crew. However, the real test
would come when a visiting team of surveyors did an
official inspection of his channel to see whether or not
it had met the terms of his agreement with the government.
Just days before this official inspection, however, Charles Howell, a
(27:21):
man who Hoffreys had recently promoted to major, dispatched his
own assistant to take measurements in the South Pass, with
the assistant making a show of heading out and taking
his measurements in full view of many important people. With
this don the Army engineer headed back to New Orleans.
It was then on this boat trip back that Howell's
assistant essentially made himself available to questioning by hanging out
(27:43):
in the ship's saloon. When this band was invariably questioned
about what he had found during his very public measuring
of Eid's work, the Army engineer acted like he was
reluctant about sharing his findings before instantly folding and doing
just that. As you might expect, then howls and bikes attention.
Humphrey's man claimed that the channel had only measured twelve
(28:03):
feet deep, which fell well short of the sixteen feet
that Eads had been claiming he had reached. That wasn't although,
as the Army engineer further led slip that a new
sandbar was forming a thousand feet out from the jetties,
just like Comphreys had predicted, statements which since they had
been given to reporters, spread quickly and soon stuck in.
The Genny company collapsed, which meant Eaves now had to
(28:25):
scramble to get alone just to keep his project going,
even as Howe was now openly accusing EIDs of defrauding
his investors. Everything was unraveling fast. The only way for
EIDs to save his project, his reputation, and his finances
was to get the results of the official inspection, which
whatever he feeled that the channel was actually sixteen feet
deep as he had said. The good news, then, was
(28:47):
the official inspection had been carried out shortly after howells
Man had taken his own measurements. The bad news, though,
was the Army engineer who had conducted the official inspection
insisted that he could only give his results to jet
All C. B. Comstock, So Eads reached out to Comstock
to request that he released report. The General, however, also
refused to cooperate, claiming that he had no authority to
(29:10):
do as Eads had asked. Indeed, Comstock's only responsibility was
to pass the results onto Humphreys, who in turn had
to pass it on to the Secretary of War, who
then had to pass it on to Congress. It was
then only at that point that the report had to
be shared with the public, a whole process that meant
it could be months before the report reached the public. So,
with nothing to counteract the rumors swirling against him, EAD's
(29:33):
attempt to get a loan fell apart. It seemed then
that EIDs had been undone, not because he had necessarily failed,
but because he could not prove that he hadn't failed. EIDs, though,
wasn't out of it just yet. He had a plan.
You see, an ocean going steamer named the hunts and
was due to arrive at the Mississippi soon. This was
important because he ships draft was fourteen feet and seven inches,
(29:56):
more than two feet over what Humphrey's Man had claimed
the depth of the ches channel was. Therefore, if the
Hudson was able to pass through the Jeties, it would
prove definitively that Humphrey's Man had lied and that Aids
had in fact been successful. Luckily for Eads, then he
was friends with the captain of the Hudson, who agreed
to take a ship through the channel created by the Jetties,
a path that Humphrey's Man was claiming was far too
(30:19):
shallow for a ship to pass through. Understanding the import
of this, then, when the Hudson arrived at the mouth
of the Mississippi, it stopped to allow Aids and several
reporters to board so as to take part in this
all important passage. As they got under way again, the
captain of the Hudson put complete faith in his friend,
as he showed no fear and ordered his ship to
advance at full speed, a notable show of confidence, because
(30:42):
if Humphrey's man was right, the ship could potentially destroy
itself by plowing full speed into an area too challowford
to pass through. The Hudson, though, passed through the channel
without a hitch. When this happened, both the people on
the boat and the people watching from nearby barges all
erupted in the cheers, and soon reporters were spreading the
news all across the country. Eads had done it. He'd
(31:04):
opened the South Pass. With his success planned for all
to see, EIDs was able to secure his loan and
was even able to pressure Congress into releasing the official report, which,
despite what Humphrey's man had claimed, showed that the channel
was indeed sixteen feet deep and that no new sandbar
was forming. Indeed, by the time EIDs was done, the
South Pass, which had never been more than nine feet deep,
(31:26):
would have a thirty foot deep channel. The victorious Aids
now wanted to strip Humphreys and the Army Corps of
Engineers of their unquestioned power over the Mississippi to that
anti one day civilian commission that was independent of the
Corps of Engineers to govern the river from here on out.
Aids would seemingly get his wish when in June eighteen
seventy nine, Congress voted to create the Mississippi River Commission,
(31:49):
which would have the authority to issue orders that both
private individuals and state governments had to obey, a commission
that would feature both civilian and army engineers. For Humphreys,
then the run was on the wall between the creation
of this commission and the amounting pressure to create the
US Geological Survey, which would also effectively strip power and
responsibilities away from the Army Corps of Engineers, it was
(32:11):
clear that he lost his grip on power. Indeed, with
the passage of the Mississippi River Commission, Humphreys would resign
as the Chief of Engineers and from the Army altogether.
The thing was even without Humphries, the Army and their
Corps of Engineers were still loath to surrender their power.
As such, they convinced Congress that the ratio of Army
to civil engineers serving on the Commission should be three,
(32:33):
the two guaranteeing them a permanent majority. Then, if that
wasn't enough, they also insisted that the President of the
Commission not only had to be an Army officer, but
one who had to report to the Chief of Engineers.
Which is all to say that Eide's vision of a
commission independent from army control had been thoroughly perverted. It's
no surprise then that Eads flatly rejected this set up
(32:54):
and resigned from the Commission in protest. So basically Aids
had proven himself right and even to drive Humphreys out,
and yet still the Army Corps of Egineers would still
have full control of the Mississippi. Everything would still basically
be run through the Army Corps of Engineers thanks to
their superior numbers on the Commission, and the fact that
the President of the Commission would not only be one
(33:16):
of them, but also answered directly to the Chief of Engineers. Then,
to stack things even more in their favor, the Army
also often had a saying which civilians were chosen to
serve on the Commission. This military control and structure then
helped to ensure that the Commission remained rigid and inflexible
in its handling of the river. Basically, then, once a
commission made a decision, it was going to stick with
(33:37):
it because that's the way things were done now, which
was especially bad when they, somehow, time and again on
key issues, either chose to ignore the consensus of the
three men who had done the most to study of
the river, or to otherwise somehow each time choose the
worst of their three proposals. For example, when it came
to the question of creating new outlets and reservoirs, Humphrey's
(33:57):
original rival, Ellett, had been right when he concluded that
they were the best possible option. The Commission, however, ignored
his conclusions and signed with Eads and humph reason their
opposition of such projects. The thing was, if they weren't
going to rely on atlets, it would have at least
made some sense to listen to EIDs, who had argued
for cunnoffs, which basically meant carving a straight path through
(34:17):
an area where the river curved away from such a course.
This would have had the effect of speeding up the
flow of the river and thus helped to deepen it.
The Commission, however, decided against that course as well. Meanwhile,
despite all three men opposing the levees only theory, it
became the defining aspect of the Commission's approach to the river,
as they refused to do anything else but construct higher
(34:38):
and higher levees, as the rivers wouldest progressively rose higher
and higher. This happened in part because Congress, staring new
period for the most part, refused to spend money on
internal improvements because he didn't want to spend the money,
and because they insisted it wasn't their responsibility. This included
using federal funds to build and or improve levees. To
(34:58):
try and get around this st the roadblock, the levee's
only argument was employed to claim that the construction of
levees would deepen the river, which in turn would aid
shipping in interstate commerce, something that was a federal responsibility
and thus something Congress could be compelled to spend money on.
As a result, the theory would be used over and
over again to convince and justify federal spending on levees. Then,
(35:20):
as the theory was utilized over and over again, it
became the policy of the Mississippi River Commission, which since
was headed by military men who were trained to not
question things instead of scientists who were more prone to
ask questions. The theory only became more entrenched. It even
got to the point that they actually started closing off
the natural outlets of the Mississippi, following the logic of
(35:41):
the levees only theory, while rejecting the work of the
three men who had actually study the river in depth.
That being said, a side effect of closing off these
outlets was opening up millions of acres of land for development.
In other words, there was suddenly more rich cotton growing
land available to be farmed, which had the effect of
earning the public support of the levees only theory, meaning
(36:01):
it was now more entrenched in ever that this was
the way of handling the Mississippi and its floods. The
thing was, though, none of this actually spent up the
river's current so it might carve out its own riverbed,
as the levees only theory suggested, the only way to
really do that was to contract and focus thee rivers
flood like Eads had done with his jetties, But none
of what they were doing actually did that. Instead, the
(36:22):
choices they were making more and more often than not,
having the exact opposite effect of what supporters of the
levees only theory claim would happen, as rather than carving
out the river's bottom and making it deeper, more salt
was actually being deposited, which was raving the river's bottom.
This meant that the river itself could contain less water
than it used to, and so when additional water was
added into the system, the flood level would be higher. Additionally,
(36:46):
this process of blocking off the river's natural outlets also
had the effect of ensuring that when a flood had happened,
not only would the water rise higher as it had
no place to go, but it would also tend to
move back up the Mississippi's tributaries, thereby extending the flood's damage.
These backwitters would actually inspire the name of probably the
most famous song written about the flood, Bessie Smith's Backwitter Blues,
(37:08):
which we'll talk about more when we get there. For now,
though we have seen how the stage has been set
for this disaster, as they hopefully have illustrated for you,
how it was our own decisions to alter the environment
and to do so, and often the stupidest way imaginable,
then ensure that when Mother Nature did act up, the
disaster then ensued would be as devastating as possible. Speaking
(37:29):
all Mother Nature's contributions to this calamity, we will likely
get into that next time, although first we will see
how five years before the nineteen twenty seven flood there
were plenty of warning signs of what was to come
that were of course ignored. That, however, for now, will
have to remain a story for another time. Thank you
(37:52):
for listening to Distorted History. If you would like to
help out, please rate and review the podcasts and tell
your friends if you think they'll be interested. If you
would like ad free in early episodes, I set up
such a feed over at patreon dot com slash to
started History. By paying ten bucks a month, you will
gain access to the special ad free feed available on
Spotify or likely through your podcast app as long as
(38:13):
it uses an RSS feed. I will continue to post
sources on koffee and Twitter, though, as it's just a
convenient place to go to access that information. Regardless, once again,
thank you for listening, and until next time,
My name is Eric Gaskell, and you're listening to the
Distorted History podcast and program. I didn't give you merry
nails and joy a blunder. Look, I'm radling. I'm not
(00:23):
the Arrah. A long struggle for freedom, it really is
a revolution. Last time, he helped to set the stage
for the nineteen twenty eight Mississippi Fun and the blue
songs that would come out of it by talking about
(00:44):
the decision to alter the environment in and around the
Mississippi by chopping down forrests and replacing the natural prairie
grasses with farms. These changes were important because forrests and
the tall prairie grasses that served to retain water. Without them,
the water that they would have helped to absorb had
to go someplace, which more often than not meant it
eventually ended up in the rivers that fed into the
(01:05):
Mississippi itself, which meant, under normal conditions, more wood than
average was flowing down the Mississippi than it had in
the past. This meant when the river invariably flooded, its
waters would be higher than they had ever been before. Meanwhile,
the areas around the river, especially as they moved further south,
were also being developed, which meant that when the woods rose,
they would be more devastating, simply due to the fact
(01:27):
that more people were living and farming around the river
than ever before. Now, to be clear, people weren't completely
unaware of this danger, and indeed there was a push
for the federal government to do something as a way
of controlling and or preventing such devastating floods. To that end,
the Garment had commissioned a study of the river. This study, however,
fell prey to a growing competition between the Army's Corps
(01:50):
of engineers and civil engineers through upstar arrivals. Chosen to
lead up the Army's efforts was one Andrew Atkinson Humphreys,
a particularly ambitious individual who so all this as his
opportunity to make a name for himself. However, he threw
himself so completely into his work these train ultimately caused
Humphreys to have a physical and mental breakdown, which led
(02:10):
to him losing the competition to his civil engineer rival,
Charles Ellett Junior. Humphreys, however, did not let this stand
and instead campaign for and won the opportunity to finish
his own study of the river. One in which he
made sure to belittle his rival Alan and his work,
even though he had died during the course of the
Civil War. That being said, it has to be noted
(02:30):
that both of these studies had rejected the so called
levee's only theory of controlling the river. You see, there
are two basic ways of dealing with a flood. You
have levees that hold back the rising water, while outlets
give the water someplace to drain. The levee's only theory, however,
held that not only were levies the only answer, but
by using only levees and preventing the river from draining
(02:51):
into outlets, it would focus the river's flow, which in
turn would effectively carve out its own riverbed, thereby making
the river itself deeper and thus capable of holding even
more water, which in turn made it less likely to flood. Yet,
as I said, both studies of the Mississippi had concluded
that this would not happen. The thing was, Humphries could
not apparently bring himself to fully agree with his rival, who,
(03:14):
while recommending the use of both levees and outlets, had
ultimately concluded that outlets were the best answer to dealing
with floods. Humphreys then rejected the idea of constructing new
outlets as being too expensive, and instead recommended the construction
of higher and stronger levees. That being said, he maintained
that shutting off the river's natural outlets, like the levees
only theory demanded, would be a mistake. Yet, even though
(03:36):
he time and again had dismissed and contradicted the levees
only theory, Humphries threw his actions both theory in recommending
only the construction of levees, and what he would do
down the line would unintentionally crack the door open for
the levees only theory to return. In the meantime. However,
since Humphrey's survey was hailed far and wide for its
detailed and thoroughness, Humphries, in eighteen sixty six would be
(03:58):
named the Army's Chief of Venginace. Now empowered, Humphrey's word
became law on the Army's Corps of Engineers. Indeed, it
said he accepted no criticism from within his ranks, and
nor would he accept any rivals to his authority, whether
from within the core or from the upstart civil engineers. However,
his dominance in the realm of engineering, and in particular
concerning the Mississippi River would soon be challenged. And it
(04:21):
was this challenge in the way Humphreys reacted to it,
that would help to make it. Soon the Levy's only
theory would come to define how the Mississippi River was
dealt with for decades to come. A turn of events
and all but ensured the nineteen twenty seven flood would
be catastrophic. However, before I get into the story of
Humphrey's latest rival, first, like always, I want to acknowledge
my sources for this series, which include Richard M. Mazelne
(04:44):
Junior's Backwitter Blues, The Mississippi Flood of nineteen twenty seven
in the African American Imagination, John M. Berry's Rising Tide,
the Great Mississippi Flood of nineteen twenty seven and How
It changed America, and Susan Scott Perishes the Flood Year
nineteen twenty seven, a cultural he history, and like always,
a full list of these and any other sources like
websites that I used, will be available on his podcast
(05:06):
Blue Sky and Cofee pages plus for anyone who doesn't
want to be bothered skipping through commercials. There is always
an ad free feet available to subscribers at patreon dot
com slash Distorted History. And with all that being said,
let's begin. Humphrey's latest rival was a man named James Buchanan.
Eads may highly accomplished and respected individual. Indeed, the Scientific
(05:27):
American in eighteen seventy six would call him a quote
mandam genius of industry and of incorruptible honor. He would
also be awarded the Albert Medal in eighteen eighty four
by Britain's Royal Society of Arts, and in nineteen thirty two,
deans of American colleges of Engineering would declare him to
be one of the five greatest engineers of all time.
Eads then would prove to be a serious challenge, even
(05:50):
to the lives of the head of the Army Corps
of Engineers now. Eads had his first encounter with the
Mississippi in the winter of eighteen thirty three, when he
was just thirteen years old. At the time, young Aids
was traveling on a steamboat to Saint Louis with his
mother and two sisters. The journey seems to have been
fairly uneventful until just as they were about to reach
the dock, the steamers boilers suddenly exploded, causing the boat
(06:13):
to sink rapidly, which in turn pulled those on board,
including Aids and his family, into the river. Luckily, Aids,
his mother, and his sisters would all survive, but he
would never forget that experience or the taste of the
money wad are in his mouth. While they had managed
to escape that disaster with their lives, the factor remains
that the Aids family was poor, and so young James
(06:33):
was forced to stop attending school shortly after this so
he could go to work to help support the family instead. This, however,
was not the end of his education, as Aids kept
learning doing so thanks to the owner of the mercantile
house he worked for, a man who was so impressed
by young Aid's intelligence he regularly loaned him whatever books
from his collection that took his interest. Aids in particular
(06:54):
was drawn to math and geometry, subjects which likely helped
him when he began constructing working models assault mills, fire engines,
and steamboats, all complete with miniature engines and boilers, the
last one in particular being an interesting choice considering how
he and his family had arrived in Saint Louis, something
I likely would not have even mentioned were it not
for the fact that the first business that Aids would
(07:15):
start up was a salvage business operating on the Mississippi.
As you see that ADS recognized that riverboats like the
one he and his family had taken to Saint Louis,
in addition to regularly suffering from fires and barler exposures
like the one he was so intimately familiar with, also
often ran a foul of other hazards like giant whirlpools,
unseen suck in debris, possibly from ships that had experienced
(07:36):
barler exposures, and even the occasional pirate. Yet, despite there
being a fairly obvious need for such a service, Aid's
salvage business would be the first of its kind operating
on the Mississippi. This was largely due to the fact
that the river was so muddy and so powerful it
was next to impossible to find anything once it dropped
below the surface, which meant once a sank you can
(07:57):
no longer see where a ship had wrecked. Plus, the
currents were powerful enough they could easily drag the sunken
boat away and are buried under sand. In spite of
all these hurdles, Eid's business would be a highly successful one,
in no small part due to the specialized equipment that
Aids himself designed for the task. As in addition of
specialized boats based upon ones used to remove obstructions like
(08:18):
sunken logs from the river, Eads also designed a diving
belt to allow men to work under the water. In fact,
EIDs himself would be the first man to ever use
his invention, as he utilized it to fulfill his very
first contract, which was to salvage several hundred tons wead
in doing this in numerous other jobs in the coming years,
Eads came to know quite a bit about the river,
(08:40):
as by doing so, he was able to experience the
river and feel its currents in a way no other
individual had. Eads then seemingly became obsessed with the Mississippi.
It's like whatever it was that started when he first
was sucked into the river when the boat exploded in
Saint Louis just got worsey more he plunged its depths. Indeed,
even as his business grew an, he was overseeing a
(09:01):
veritable fleet of salvage boats Aids would often still personally
be the one diving into the Mississippi and conducting these
salvage operations. Nothing, it seemed, could pull him away from
the river, not the success of his business, nor his
wife after they got married. Indeed, after his son died
and his wife Martha fell ill, EIDs would continue to
dedicate his time and energy to the river. Not even
(09:22):
Martha's death, which left to me a thirty two year
old widowerd charged with the care of two baby daughters,
could probably Aids away from the Mississippi, as he instead
left his daughters in the care of his sister in
law so he could go back to work. It wouldn't
be until a year after his wife's death that Aids
finally stopped diving into the Mississippi, and only doing so
then because of ill health. All this effort, however, had
(09:45):
left EIDs quite a rich man, as when he eventually
retired from the salvage business altogether a year later, he
had a personal fortune of at least five hundred thousand dollars,
which is probably somewhere in the neighborhood of eighteen million
dollars today. In addition to being rich over the years,
Eads had made numerous connections with other powerful figures, as
he was well acquainted with publishers, businessmen, politicians, and bankers. Yet,
(10:09):
even though he was able to form these alliances, Aids
would still most often be described as a hard man,
an unbending figure, and the type of man who, once
he decided to do something, was unfledging in his pursuit
of that goal. This can be seen during the course
of the Civil War, as Aids was crucial and arguing
for the construction of ironclad warships they could then be
used to take control of the Mississippi and thereby split
(10:31):
the Confederacy. In addition to arguing for their construction, Aids
would also convince the government to give him the contract
to build seven such ironclad gunboats, doing so despite not
having a shipyard, a factory, a machine shop, a foundry,
or even the lumber necessary to build such ships. Yet
still he managed to find and pull together all these
necessary resources to accomplish his task, doing so even when
(10:54):
the government failed to pay him as promised. Then, despite
the government not coming through on their end of the deal,
Eads still delivered his ironclad warships to the At the
time little known General Ulysses S. Grant. It was then
largely thanks to the help of Eid's fleet, which Aids
had more or less commanded, as he still technically owned
the ships, that Grant was able to force the Surrenderer Force,
(11:16):
Henry and Donaldson conquest that represented some of the first
major Union victories of the war. Aids would eventually go
on to build twenty five ships in total, plus he
even designed a rotating steam driven gun to it that
he Nivy considered to be superior to the one that
had been used in the Monitor, which had not been
one of Eid's constructions. By the end of the war,
this service to his country helped to make James Eads
(11:38):
one of the most prominent and powerful men in the
Mississippi Valley, a reality that did not sit well with
Humphreys nor the Army Corps of Engineers, as they wanted
sole control over the river. As such, when Aids proposed
and got permission to build a bridge over the river
at Saint Louis, the Army objected to the project. Now,
to be fair, this was a revolutionary project that Aids
(11:59):
was posing, as the bridge he was intending to build
would have the longest arches ever constructed for such a purpose. Plus,
he was also intending to build the bridge out of steel,
something that had never been attempted before. Indeed, the British
had even forbidden the use of such materials in their
bridge constructions. Ghetto was not for any of these reasons,
and Humphreys and the Army's Corps of Engineers were objecting
(12:22):
to the bridge's construction. Instead, their real motivation had to
do with Aids, effectively challenging them on another issue concerning
the Mississippi. You see, the mouth of the Mississippi had
long been played by the issue of sandbars, which interfered
with the passage of ships, a problem that the Corps
of Engineers had at this point been battling for forty
years to no success. It was then their latest plan
(12:43):
to deal with these sand bars that would be the
source of their latest issue with Ads. As you see,
the Army had declared that these sand bars were a
permanent barrier, and so instead of trying to remove them,
they were intending to build a canal to bypass them altogether. Eads,
though believed that such a plan was unnecess he had,
after all, previously dealt with sandbars near Saint Louis. From
(13:04):
his experience, then, a system of jennies that ran out
into the Gulf of Mexico would narrow the river's current
enough to thereby cut through the sandbars and allow passage
without having to build a canal. Humphreys, though, saw the
very fact that AIDS had vocally disagreed with his Corps
of Engineers as a personal insult and a challenge. Now
Humphries did not like being challenged generally, but this was
(13:25):
likely seen as especially vexing, as there was talk at
the time of taking control of the river out of
the Army Corps of Engineer's hands and instead transferred those
responsibilities to a newly formed commission that would feature both
representatives from the Army Corps of Engineers and civilian engineers
as well, something that Humphreys very much did not want
to happen. Therefore, the corp would take advantage of a
(13:47):
scoreless complaint that had been filed by a steamboat company
in several Ferries against aids proposed bridge, a complaint that
alleged that the bridge would interfere with steamboats traveling down
the river. However, the real reason for their issue whilst
their businesses would likely be hurt by the bridge, giving
people other options to cross the Mississippi. As such, their
claims that the bridge would hamper ships traveling up and
(14:08):
down the river were quite frankly falls because Ed's plans
for the bridge and met the requirements that had been
set forth by the Senate, which required such bridges to
be a certain height so as to allow ships to
pass underneath of them safely. Yet despite this, Humphrey still
ordered a commission to investigate the bridge, a commission that
he made sure was filled with men who were loyal
(14:29):
to him and against Eaves. This was especially true a
major GK. Warren, who, in addition to his relationship with Humphreys,
was also looking to construct his own railroad bridge that
the one in Saint Louis would compete with. As such,
the hearing was very much just for show, as they
spent two full days listening to individuals who claimed that
(14:49):
the bridge would obstruct navigation, while refusing to give even
an additional day to hear from those who would testify otherwise. Indeed,
Warren would respond to the request to hear from opposing
views by the Claren quote very thousand steamboatmen could come
and say that this bridge was no obstruction. It could
not change my opinion, a statement witchfully illustrated how pointless
(15:10):
this hearing was. The judges had already made up their minds.
There was, however, just one problem for Humphreys and his
corp of engineers, and that was Aids had made quite
the positive impression on Ulysses ask Grant during the war,
as you might recalled, had been his ships that had
been crucial in defeating Forts Henry and Donaldson, victories that
had been a major launching point for a Grant success
(15:31):
in that conflict, a relationship that was especially important now
as Grant was no longer in general but the President
of the United States. So in response to this obvious sham,
Eads went directly to his friend to tell him about
what had happened. President Grant then interceded in this situation
by ordering the army to back down and allow the
(15:51):
bridge construction to proceed. Now, Humphreys would still try to interfere,
but when he did, Aids just ignored him, as he
knew he had President's backing Eads and finished the construction
of his bridge that would allow trains to cross the
river for a century to come, thereby illustrating that, for
all its ambition and innovation, his engineering was sound. This success, however,
(16:13):
would put even more of a target on his back,
as Aids A challenged the Army's Corps of Engineers and
their dominance over the Mississippi River, a challenge that Humphries
talked personally and would not let stand. Despite finishing construction
(16:59):
on his bridge, the conflict between Eads and Humphreys was
far from over. Their issues, however, would no longer be
focused on bridging the Mississippi at Saint Louis. Instead, the
new venue for their conflict would be the issue that
had actually brought each to Humphrey's attention in the first place,
and thereby earned desire. This issue, of course, being the
sand bars had clogged the mouth of the Mississippi, disrupting shipping,
(17:20):
an issue that the Army Corps of Engineers had been
dealing with for decades at this point, with little to
no success. Indeed, not long before this, Humphreys had backed
the use of a pair of massive dredging machines that
had been built explicitly to deal with the uniquely thick
and heavy deposits made by the Mississippi that had proven
so vexing. Now, the first of these two monster judges
was called the Assaians. But the first time it was
(17:43):
dispatched to go deal with the troublesome sand bars, things
did not get off to an auspicious start, what with
its engine breaking down as it attempted to depart from
New Orleans. In other words, it hadn't even gone to
work yet, and it was already experiencing failures. Indeed, it
would try and fail to part twice more before finally
managing to successfully leave port. It then took the massive
(18:05):
dredging vessel two weeks to reach its destination, which may
not sound notable until you realize that a long carriage
simply by the river's current could travel that same distance
in a day and a half. However, it really did
not matter how long and how many tries it had
taken for the dredge to reach its destination. Now that
it was there, all that matter was it what accomplished
(18:26):
the task it had been built explicitly four removing the
sand bars. Indeed, the Massive Dredge would set to work
on the sand bars over the next ten months. Although
the word work may be a bit of an exaggeration
as well. Sure it was at the sand bars for
a significant chunks of time, the dredge wasn't actually functioning. Indeed,
for three whole months the dredge did not do a
(18:47):
single day's work, and for these seven months, when it
actually managed to do something, it was only functional for
one to fifteen days out of each of those months.
In the wake of this staggering failure, the Core decided
that rather than try to remove these sand bars, it
was better to just avoid them altogether by carving out
a new canal for ships to take, which is where
AIDS came into the picture. He thought the construction of
(19:09):
the canal unnecessary, as he believed he could accomplish what
the Army Corps of Engineers had failed to do by
clearing a path through the sand bars. Indeed, he would
bring his alternative plans to Washington to share them with
both reporters and congressmen. According to AIDS, as plan utilizing
jetties would create a shipping channel through these sand bars
that was ten feet deeper than the Corps of Engineers
(19:30):
proposed canal. As such, AIDS would be creating a channel
deep enough to accommodate even the largest ocean going vessels
of the day. Plus he asserted his channel would also
be wide enough to allow multiple ships to pass through
at the same time, in contrast to the proposed canal,
where ships would only be able to pass through single file. Basically,
EIDs was offering a solution that would be superior in
(19:52):
every way to want the Army Corps of Engineers was offering,
and he was promising it would cost three million dollars
less than the canal as well. Then, to swing the
deal even more, Eads promised that if he failed to
accomplish what he promised in one cost of government a dime. Basically,
he was offering to take on all the risk until
his channel had reached a depth deeper than the proposed canal.
(20:13):
Before I go any further, though, I think I should
take a moment to explain a little more about Eid's plan.
You see, he planned to construct a series of jetties
that would concentrate the flow of the river so much
that it would carve out the troublesome sandbars, which does
admittedly sound similar to the levees only theory. However, that
resemblance is only superficial. As you see, levees, by their
(20:34):
nature were built away from the river's edge so as
to block the river from flooding past a certain point,
which meant they only affected the flow of the water
once it start to overflow its natural banks. Therefore, lemmies
could only affect things for part of the year, which
was a big reason why the levees only theory was
never going to work like its supporters thought it would.
(20:55):
When it came to Eads and his jetties, though, they
would be constantly concentrating the river's power, and would be
doing so by aiming the greatly restricted waters onto a
precise area. In other words, yes, levies could increase the
speed of the river's water and by doing so have
a carving out effect. The issue, though, was since they
would only be doing so briefly and weren't really concentrating
the river's flow all that much, they weren't going to
(21:17):
car at the river's bottom so as to prevent flooding,
something which Aids understood just as much as Humphrey's an
alled before him now as tempting his Eid's proposal had
to have been, but with offering a superior solution at
no cost of the government should he fail. The fact
remained that his Gitti's proposal did not have the same
widespread support as the Army Corps of Engineers can now
(21:38):
plan did AIDS. Though as always was determined, the problem
for him was Humphreys was just as determined because he
was convinced that whoever won this conflict would have the
power to determine policy concerning the Mississippi River going forward,
something that was of great concern to Humphreys, especially since
the issue was becoming one of civil versus military engineers,
(21:59):
as engineers had seized upon the issue as their chance
to at last strip the Army Corps of Engineers of
its unquestioned power, something that the nation's civil engineers believed
desperately needed to be done because the Corps was hopelessly
stuck in the past. You see, even as technology was
changing and advancing at a rapid pace, West Point was
still using the same engineering textbook as it had back
(22:22):
in eighteen thirty seven. Humphreys, though, was not about to
surrender control the Mississippi, much less the pre eminence of
the Army Corps of Engineers. Therefore, he would do everything
in his power to prevent Aids from succeeding, even if
his own men had come to the conclusion that Eide's
plan was a superior approach. Humphries then started putting forth
(22:42):
a series of arguments for why he thought the jetties
wouldn't work. To start with the argue that the river's
mouth was simply too soft to support the weight of
the jetties, meaning they would simply sink and be ineffective.
But even if that didn't happen, he argued that the sandbors,
Aids would be trying to carve his way through actually sound,
hard clay deposits, deposits that had resisted the river's natural
(23:04):
current for years, and so, according to Humphries, not even
the focus flow created by the jetties would be able
to do anything. Then, just in case that also wasn't true,
he argued that the river was just going to rebuild
these sandbars further out, meaning you just had the same
issue again unless you wanted to build jetties endlessly out
into the Gulf of Mexico. Now, Eads, who knew the
(23:26):
river as well, if not better than anyone else, dismissed
all of these claims as being baseless, yet for all
his experience and knowledge of the river, it didn't really
matter what Eyd said, as what actually mattered was who
was Congress going to believe. The answer to that question, however, was,
as it turns out, a bit complicated, as the House
apparently trusted Humphries as they rejected Eid's and as jetties
(23:47):
plan to go with the Army Corps of Engineers in
their canal plan. The Senate, however, flatly rejected the House's proposal,
which eventually led to a compromise that mainly consisted of
handing off this question to someone else, or multiple someone
else's to be precise. As you see, they agreed to
create a Board of Engineers to oversee questions concerning the
Mississippi River. This board would then consist of three members
(24:10):
of the Army Corps of Engineers, three civilian engineers, and
a member of the US Coastal Survey. After six months
of studying this question, the newly created board ultimately voted
six to one in support of jetties, although in doing
so they rejected Eid's plan of constructing them at the
southwest path, where most of the river's waters flowed through
the board. You see believed such a project there would
(24:32):
be too expensive, so they recommended the jetties be built
in the South Pass, which was the smallest and shallowest
of the Mississippi's main outlets. So while look like EIDs
had one, he Stole worried that this change would be
his undoing, as he feared the flow water through the
South Pass would be insufficient for the job at hand. Meanwhile,
Humphreys was not being yet as he was working his
(24:54):
allies in Congress, alleging to them that Eaves plan was
designed to make him excessive profits. They shaped and wrote
the Jenny's Bill in such a way that they will
lead you would have no choice but to reject it. Basically,
in addition to mandating that he had to work in
the South Pass, where he didn't want to and wasn't
confident if his plan would work, they also effectively cut
in half the payment he would receive when he exceeded
(25:16):
the depth of the canal. Essentially, then they were limiting
his reward for accomplishing this feat while also forcing him
to work someplace where he was less confident about his success.
And keep in mind, Eads had more or less stated
both his reputation and his fortune on this being successful,
as he had agreed to fund the entire project until
it had best at the depth of the proposed canal. Yet,
(25:37):
despite all these risks, Heids still accepted the challenge. Indeed,
when he surveyed the South Pass, Eads came away confident
that in spite of this change in venue, he would
still be successful, as while the sandbar in the South
Pass was actually starting to close off that part of
the river, limiting its floe even more, he found that
the sand there was fairly light and thus would be
(25:58):
easy to cut through was a strong enough current. Plus,
he also discovered that there was a strong coastal current
in the region which would sweep away the sand that
they displaced, thereby not allowing it to be depositive. Further outly,
comfreys that claim would happen. That being said, Eid still
had just thirteen months to meet his goals, and before
even getting to work, he first needed to raise money
(26:19):
to fund this project, seeing as out of the agreement
he had made with the government meant he wouldn't be
getting a dime from them until he started to meet
his goals. Aids then went around promising investors that they
would double their money plus ten percent interest. It was
with such guarantees then that Eid started to get some backers,
despite continued interference from Humphreys. With at least money enough
(26:40):
to get started, Eads contracted a company owned by one
James Andrew to conduct the actual work of building in
place in the jetties, a process which cost half as
much as the government had estimated it would cost, and
which allowed them to be produced at a much faster pace.
As you see, the established method of constructing jetties took
two days to construct and launch each section, but their
(27:00):
new method was able to do the same job in
just two hours. So things seemed to be going pretty
well for EIDs and his crew. However, the real test
would come when a visiting team of surveyors did an
official inspection of his channel to see whether or not
it had met the terms of his agreement with the government.
Just days before this official inspection, however, Charles Howell, a
(27:21):
man who Hoffreys had recently promoted to major, dispatched his
own assistant to take measurements in the South Pass, with
the assistant making a show of heading out and taking
his measurements in full view of many important people. With
this don the Army engineer headed back to New Orleans.
It was then on this boat trip back that Howell's
assistant essentially made himself available to questioning by hanging out
(27:43):
in the ship's saloon. When this band was invariably questioned
about what he had found during his very public measuring
of Eid's work, the Army engineer acted like he was
reluctant about sharing his findings before instantly folding and doing
just that. As you might expect, then howls and bikes attention.
Humphrey's man claimed that the channel had only measured twelve
(28:03):
feet deep, which fell well short of the sixteen feet
that Eads had been claiming he had reached. That wasn't although,
as the Army engineer further led slip that a new
sandbar was forming a thousand feet out from the jetties,
just like Comphreys had predicted, statements which since they had
been given to reporters, spread quickly and soon stuck in.
The Genny company collapsed, which meant Eaves now had to
(28:25):
scramble to get alone just to keep his project going,
even as Howe was now openly accusing EIDs of defrauding
his investors. Everything was unraveling fast. The only way for
EIDs to save his project, his reputation, and his finances
was to get the results of the official inspection, which
whatever he feeled that the channel was actually sixteen feet
deep as he had said. The good news, then, was
(28:47):
the official inspection had been carried out shortly after howells
Man had taken his own measurements. The bad news, though,
was the Army engineer who had conducted the official inspection
insisted that he could only give his results to jet
All C. B. Comstock, So Eads reached out to Comstock
to request that he released report. The General, however, also
refused to cooperate, claiming that he had no authority to
(29:10):
do as Eads had asked. Indeed, Comstock's only responsibility was
to pass the results onto Humphreys, who in turn had
to pass it on to the Secretary of War, who
then had to pass it on to Congress. It was
then only at that point that the report had to
be shared with the public, a whole process that meant
it could be months before the report reached the public. So,
with nothing to counteract the rumors swirling against him, EAD's
(29:33):
attempt to get a loan fell apart. It seemed then
that EIDs had been undone, not because he had necessarily failed,
but because he could not prove that he hadn't failed. EIDs, though,
wasn't out of it just yet. He had a plan.
You see, an ocean going steamer named the hunts and
was due to arrive at the Mississippi soon. This was
important because he ships draft was fourteen feet and seven inches,
(29:56):
more than two feet over what Humphrey's Man had claimed
the depth of the ches channel was. Therefore, if the
Hudson was able to pass through the Jeties, it would
prove definitively that Humphrey's Man had lied and that Aids
had in fact been successful. Luckily for Eads, then he
was friends with the captain of the Hudson, who agreed
to take a ship through the channel created by the Jetties,
a path that Humphrey's Man was claiming was far too
(30:19):
shallow for a ship to pass through. Understanding the import
of this, then, when the Hudson arrived at the mouth
of the Mississippi, it stopped to allow Aids and several
reporters to board so as to take part in this
all important passage. As they got under way again, the
captain of the Hudson put complete faith in his friend,
as he showed no fear and ordered his ship to
advance at full speed, a notable show of confidence, because
(30:42):
if Humphrey's man was right, the ship could potentially destroy
itself by plowing full speed into an area too challowford
to pass through. The Hudson, though, passed through the channel
without a hitch. When this happened, both the people on
the boat and the people watching from nearby barges all
erupted in the cheers, and soon reporters were spreading the
news all across the country. Eads had done it. He'd
(31:04):
opened the South Pass. With his success planned for all
to see, EIDs was able to secure his loan and
was even able to pressure Congress into releasing the official report, which,
despite what Humphrey's man had claimed, showed that the channel
was indeed sixteen feet deep and that no new sandbar
was forming. Indeed, by the time EIDs was done, the
South Pass, which had never been more than nine feet deep,
(31:26):
would have a thirty foot deep channel. The victorious Aids
now wanted to strip Humphreys and the Army Corps of
Engineers of their unquestioned power over the Mississippi to that
anti one day civilian commission that was independent of the
Corps of Engineers to govern the river from here on out.
Aids would seemingly get his wish when in June eighteen
seventy nine, Congress voted to create the Mississippi River Commission,
(31:49):
which would have the authority to issue orders that both
private individuals and state governments had to obey, a commission
that would feature both civilian and army engineers. For Humphreys,
then the run was on the wall between the creation
of this commission and the amounting pressure to create the
US Geological Survey, which would also effectively strip power and
responsibilities away from the Army Corps of Engineers, it was
(32:11):
clear that he lost his grip on power. Indeed, with
the passage of the Mississippi River Commission, Humphreys would resign
as the Chief of Engineers and from the Army altogether.
The thing was even without Humphries, the Army and their
Corps of Engineers were still loath to surrender their power.
As such, they convinced Congress that the ratio of Army
to civil engineers serving on the Commission should be three,
(32:33):
the two guaranteeing them a permanent majority. Then, if that
wasn't enough, they also insisted that the President of the
Commission not only had to be an Army officer, but
one who had to report to the Chief of Engineers.
Which is all to say that Eide's vision of a
commission independent from army control had been thoroughly perverted. It's
no surprise then that Eads flatly rejected this set up
(32:54):
and resigned from the Commission in protest. So basically Aids
had proven himself right and even to drive Humphreys out,
and yet still the Army Corps of Egineers would still
have full control of the Mississippi. Everything would still basically
be run through the Army Corps of Engineers thanks to
their superior numbers on the Commission, and the fact that
the President of the Commission would not only be one
(33:16):
of them, but also answered directly to the Chief of Engineers. Then,
to stack things even more in their favor, the Army
also often had a saying which civilians were chosen to
serve on the Commission. This military control and structure then
helped to ensure that the Commission remained rigid and inflexible
in its handling of the river. Basically, then, once a
commission made a decision, it was going to stick with
(33:37):
it because that's the way things were done now, which
was especially bad when they, somehow, time and again on
key issues, either chose to ignore the consensus of the
three men who had done the most to study of
the river, or to otherwise somehow each time choose the
worst of their three proposals. For example, when it came
to the question of creating new outlets and reservoirs, Humphrey's
(33:57):
original rival, Ellett, had been right when he concluded that
they were the best possible option. The Commission, however, ignored
his conclusions and signed with Eads and humph reason their
opposition of such projects. The thing was, if they weren't
going to rely on atlets, it would have at least
made some sense to listen to EIDs, who had argued
for cunnoffs, which basically meant carving a straight path through
(34:17):
an area where the river curved away from such a course.
This would have had the effect of speeding up the
flow of the river and thus helped to deepen it.
The Commission, however, decided against that course as well. Meanwhile,
despite all three men opposing the levees only theory, it
became the defining aspect of the Commission's approach to the river,
as they refused to do anything else but construct higher
(34:38):
and higher levees, as the rivers wouldest progressively rose higher
and higher. This happened in part because Congress, staring new
period for the most part, refused to spend money on
internal improvements because he didn't want to spend the money,
and because they insisted it wasn't their responsibility. This included
using federal funds to build and or improve levees. To
(34:58):
try and get around this st the roadblock, the levee's
only argument was employed to claim that the construction of
levees would deepen the river, which in turn would aid
shipping in interstate commerce, something that was a federal responsibility
and thus something Congress could be compelled to spend money on.
As a result, the theory would be used over and
over again to convince and justify federal spending on levees. Then,
(35:20):
as the theory was utilized over and over again, it
became the policy of the Mississippi River Commission, which since
was headed by military men who were trained to not
question things instead of scientists who were more prone to
ask questions. The theory only became more entrenched. It even
got to the point that they actually started closing off
the natural outlets of the Mississippi, following the logic of
(35:41):
the levees only theory, while rejecting the work of the
three men who had actually study the river in depth.
That being said, a side effect of closing off these
outlets was opening up millions of acres of land for development.
In other words, there was suddenly more rich cotton growing
land available to be farmed, which had the effect of
earning the public support of the levees only theory, meaning
(36:01):
it was now more entrenched in ever that this was
the way of handling the Mississippi and its floods. The
thing was, though, none of this actually spent up the
river's current so it might carve out its own riverbed,
as the levees only theory suggested, the only way to
really do that was to contract and focus thee rivers
flood like Eads had done with his jetties, But none
of what they were doing actually did that. Instead, the
(36:22):
choices they were making more and more often than not,
having the exact opposite effect of what supporters of the
levees only theory claim would happen, as rather than carving
out the river's bottom and making it deeper, more salt
was actually being deposited, which was raving the river's bottom.
This meant that the river itself could contain less water
than it used to, and so when additional water was
added into the system, the flood level would be higher. Additionally,
(36:46):
this process of blocking off the river's natural outlets also
had the effect of ensuring that when a flood had happened,
not only would the water rise higher as it had
no place to go, but it would also tend to
move back up the Mississippi's tributaries, thereby extending the flood's damage.
These backwitters would actually inspire the name of probably the
most famous song written about the flood, Bessie Smith's Backwitter Blues,
(37:08):
which we'll talk about more when we get there. For now,
though we have seen how the stage has been set
for this disaster, as they hopefully have illustrated for you,
how it was our own decisions to alter the environment
and to do so, and often the stupidest way imaginable,
then ensure that when Mother Nature did act up, the
disaster then ensued would be as devastating as possible. Speaking
(37:29):
all Mother Nature's contributions to this calamity, we will likely
get into that next time, although first we will see
how five years before the nineteen twenty seven flood there
were plenty of warning signs of what was to come
that were of course ignored. That, however, for now, will
have to remain a story for another time. Thank you
(37:52):
for listening to Distorted History. If you would like to
help out, please rate and review the podcasts and tell
your friends if you think they'll be interested. If you
would like ad free in early episodes, I set up
such a feed over at patreon dot com slash to
started History. By paying ten bucks a month, you will
gain access to the special ad free feed available on
Spotify or likely through your podcast app as long as
(38:13):
it uses an RSS feed. I will continue to post
sources on koffee and Twitter, though, as it's just a
convenient place to go to access that information. Regardless, once again,
thank you for listening, and until next time,
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