Why read Lincoln in New Orleans?

Book cover of Lincoln in New Orleans: The 1828-1831 Flatboat Voyages and Their Place in History

Book description

In 1828, a teenaged Abraham Lincoln guided a flatboat down the Mississippi River to New Orleans. The adventure marked his first visit to a major city and exposed him to the nation's largest slave marketplace. It also nearly cost him his life, in a nighttime attack in the Louisiana plantation…

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American history

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Why read it?

1 author picked Lincoln in New Orleans as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Rose Osterman Kleidon

Author

As a teenager, Abraham Lincoln built a flatboat and floated down the Mississippi to New Orleans to sell the produce his family and neighbors had grown. This and a similar trip three years later were his only exposure to the Deep South. They immersed him in a culture of riverboat men that was archetypical of the era and included events that became part of the mythology surrounding him, an attack by runaway slaves that could have killed him, and his rescue of fellow boatman from drowning. Campanella is a university professor, tireless researcher, and excellent writer.

From Rose's list on immigration in the 1800s.