The 1856 summer season was like so many that had come before – uneventful, idyllic.
On the horizon, however, a massive cloud formation.
Life was good.
The waters of the Gulf were cool, its breezes fresh.
More than four hundred vacationers—wealthy sugar planters, powerful politicians, their families, friends and servants—had come to the island to escape the hot August sun.
The South’s newest and most popular watering spot was a microcosm of Louisiana’s antebellum economic and social structure.
The 1856 summer season was like so many that had come before – uneventful, idyllic