Southern Travels

Travel in early America was an adventure, and John H. B. Latrobe, son of the architect of the nation’s capitol, caught its spirit in his lively journal. Adventures on land and at sea enlivened a journey from New York to New Orleans, up the Mississippi River to Natchez and back, and across the southeastern states by stagecoach to Baltimore. Latrobe’s witty and acerbic comments on his fellow travelers, lodgings, food, politics, and a thousand other matters are constantly entertaining and enlightening. The customs of New Orleans—from quadroon balls to oysters doused in hot pepper sauce—are detailed with the fascination that made Latrobe call the city “a place after its own fashion.”