Authors Ryan Starrett and Josh Foreman chart a Gulf Coast odyssey with French adventurers, English colonists, Spanish Dons, American filibusters, Indian warriors, African Maroons, and pirate outlaws . For centuries, the shoreline between Galveston and Tallahassee was marked by the desperate deeds of men who fought for God, gold, and glory, as well as those who simply wanted to be left alone. Regardless of motive, the Gulf Coast has seen its share of seafaring warriors and miscreants, from ...

Conquest. War. Famine. Death. During the Civil War, all Four Horsemen circled the flock of William Henry Elder, the third bishop of Natchez. Elder was a hopeful unionist turned secessionist whose diocese encompassed the entirety of Mississippi. Consequently, he witnessed many of the pivotal moments of the Civil War-the capitulation of Natchez, the Siege of Vicksburg, the destruction of Jackson and the overall desolation of a state. And in the midst of the conflict, Bishop Elder went about ...

Since prehistory, the bluffs of Natchez have called to the bold, the cruel and the quietly determined. The diverse opportunists who heeded that call have left behind more than three hundred years of colorful and tragic stories. The Natchez Indians, who inhabited the bluffs at the time of European contact, made a calculated but ultimately catastrophic decision to massacre the French who had settled nearby. William Johnson, a Black man who occupied a tenuous position between two worlds, foun...

Unearth bounty from the Mississippi Delta The conquistadors staggered through the Delta half-starved, mostly naked, dripping with swamp water. They became the first Europeans to walk in the shade of the Delta's ancient cypress trees, hear the howl of the red wolf, and eat the maize that would give the Delta its signature dish: the hot tamale. Over the centuries, the bountiful soil of the Delta would beckon to those from all over the world. Others came because they had no choice, tilling th...

The history of New Orleans is one of contrasts--heroes and villains, catastrophe and celebration, sinners and saints. In this New Orleans, a serial-killing axeman threatens to murder anyone not playing jazz. A fearless band of missionary nuns pushes to civilize the frontier. During World War II, Nazi U-boats lurk off the coast, while Denton Crocker's battle with local mosquitoes contributes to victory in the Pacific. From the streetcar strikers who lined the thoroughfares with IEDs to the ...

The history of Jackson is filled with gripping tales of horrors and heroism. Join Ryan Starrett and Josh Foreman as they reveal the hidden past of the City with Soul.A recording company founded in the mid-1960s with the expectation of competing with New Orleans and Memphis was a national success, outlasting its better-funded rivals. Known as the "Devil's Backbone," the Natchez Trace is the graveyard for countless travelers slain by the road's numerous serial killer...

The Natchez Trace is the "Path of Nations," a 450-mile-long game trail stamped into the earth by primeval bison. Once the domain of the Natchez, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek and Cherokee tribes, the Trace nurtured these groups, but it was also watered with the blood of tribesmen long before any white man trod on it. European settlers eventually used the path to navigate between the backwoods Cumberland settlements and the cosmopolitan city of Natchez, with Spanish gold clinking in the seams o...

Inside are thirteen little-known tales from the Gulf Coast from Lake Borgne to Mobile.Sail into the Mississippi Sound with Bienville, the Frenchman covered in serpentine tattoos. Meet the heroes of the Sound: fearless Father LeDuc, who faced down Yankee pillagers; the wild woman of Horn Island, who could shoot as well as any man; and Ray Nosaka, who fed his body to the dogs of war, all in service of his country. Glimpse a school of the Sound's own patron fish, the ...