This book portrays the steamboat era on the Chesapeake (1813a "1963), which matched the glamour and excitement of the steamboats on the Mississippi. The book begins with the building of the first steamboat on the bay, in the shadow of a bitter struggle over a monopoly on the Delaware and the Chesapeake. It continues with stories of the genius of early engine builders, the legends arising from dramatic steamboat disasters, spirited adventures of the Civil War, the excitement of steamboat excursions and resorts, the personalities of many steamboats and their masters, the railroad's near...