Antebellum Arrogance and Retribution: On Stuart W. Sanders' "Murder on the Ohio Belle"

Stuart W. Sanders | Murder on the Ohio Belle | University Press of Kentucky | 2020 | 152 Pages

“Pick your battles.” We say this to avoid conflict or to decide when is a better time to wage war. But in a country whose dividing line is as fluid as the river which once divided free states from slave states, it’s not always so simple. 

In Murder on the Ohio Belle, Sanders takes the reader on a journey in stages, much like the steamship itself, which was first new, then prevalent, and changed hands in the Civil War as it delivered goods, people, and property up and down the Ohio River. The steamship's patrons were a wide variety of gentry, thieves, gamblers, actors and actresses, slaves, and rough rivermen. Not unlike a small city on the water, it was known to mete out its own justice. 

From his opening pages, the book is a study in the complexities of antebellum America with murder at its core. In his opening remarks, Sanders writes, "The history of the Ohio Belle presents a portrait of how western antebellum society embraced retribution. Although many hoped for justice when a wrong had been perpetrated, the threat of vengeance loomed ever present."  

In Texas, there still exists a law, “he needed killing.” Though known as the Texas Defense, it originated in Kentucky in 1870. But it wasn't until after one trial in Indiana in which a juror was heard to say,  “the jury thought that he was not exactly justified, but that he [the deceased] needed killing anyway, and that they just voted to let him [the defendant] off.” As James B. Gillett explained in his memoir, Six Years with the Texas Rangers, 1875-1881, the defense was most popular with the Texas Rangers. 

In the heyday of the steamship industry from 1839 to 1866, three incarnations of the Belle traveled between Cincinnati and New Orleans. In 1856, a man was found tied to a chair and drowned in the Ohio River. Though drowned men in the Ohio River was a fairly common occurrence, this man’s death made headlines. 

Well known on the waters of the Ohio River, the Belle was a luxury steamship that carried goods and people from Ohio to Louisiana. It played a significant role in developing commerce, expanding the country as people moved westward as it became part of the 'packet line,' a system in which cargo and people were carried up and down the river at regular times, carrying people and news along the way.

One of the Belle's most infamous passengers was J.B. Jones. Though he claimed to be a plantation owner's son and felt he was owed that distinction and reference, he was a murderer. Under an assumed name, he'd boarded the Belle and made this claim. Though he was a Mississippi plantation owner's son, he was not honorable. 

In testing his one-time fiance, he sent a friend to court her. When the friend asked Jones's fiance for her hand, the fiance accepted, and on the day of the wedding, after the nuptials, the man known as J.B. Jones shot his friend in cold blood. It was then he left home, taking his assumed name.

Then, on the Belle, he shot the ship's clerk, Hiram Stevens. Why? After paying for a haircut from the ship's barber, the barber went to the clerk with the money. The ship's clerk claimed it was counterfeit and would not accept it. An argument ensued between Stevens and Jones in which Jones felt slighted. But Jones's feathers weren’t fully raised until Hiram physically removed him from the cabin. How dare this lower-class clerk maltreat him? It was this slight which saw no retribution but death, and so Jones pulled out his gun and shot Stevens. But Jones was not his real name, and Stevens was not his first victim.

Who was this mystery man, and how can an obscure double murder help explain Southern sensibilities and the role this steamship would play as she navigated the waters between Cincinnati and New Orleans?

It wasn’t long before the dead man’s identity was discovered. What was interesting was the stance the newspapers took at first, when only the victim was known—murdered in a moment of drunken arrogance by someone of the “touchwood gentry.” After all, the killer’s clothes showed him to be born of wealth, but his alias and counterfeit monies showed him to be not so honorable a man as his clothing promised. Once a family name and place were known, suddenly, the victim’s death became his fault for not following the roles of etiquette shared by Southern gentleman. Money, or the suggestion of it, wins every time. And before long, the Belle’s crew members were lambasted as vigilante justice perpetrators.

The mystery man's true identity was soon uncovered. J.B. Jones was the alias of Joseph Cocke, Jr. Though it remains a mystery whether or not the Belle’s crew were the perpetrators of Cocke's death or if the Belle’s captain truly knew nothing, it Sander’s leaves the impression that it was an unspoken truth. After all, it would have been in keeping with river justice, as Cocke, Jr. had killed one of their own. 

Yet, it’s the peoples’ reactions both on and off the ship, which steer the story to its end. After all, Murder on the Ohio Belle isn’t necessarily about murder; it’s about the stoked fires of social tension, which led to two deaths—one lower- and one upper-class. 

Steamships offered unique perspectives on the world as they carried a variety of passengers not often brought together in one place. On the Belle, for example, one could observe the details of a growing nation—such as the straw polls conducted regarding Van Buren and Harrison, debates about Henry Watson, a slave who set foot on free soil by leaning against a lamppost at a landing, and the dismissed murderess Margaret Garner, the inspiration for Toni Morrison’s Beloved. Whether the Belle meant to or not, it was part of a broader history than the steamboat trade. As Sanders writes, “the Mississippi River was king, but the Ohio River was no slouch.”

As vast and varied as the storied vessels, the story of Murder on the Ohio Belle captures the clash of class and cultures between the North and the South, between wealthy southerners and those they deemed to be lower-class in living color.