In the spring of 1831 Abraham Lincoln, along with two relatives, built a flatboat and set off down the Mississippi River for New Orleans. He spent a month in this, the most sophisticated, opulent American city of the day, and never wrote or said a word about the things he experienced there. In this novel, John Roll, an irrepressible 17-year-old Sangamon Town lad, tells the tale of the weeks Lincoln and the others spent building the boat, their on-the-river adventures, and their discoveries in New Orleans. Come along on the journey. Ride the river and walk the streets of 1831 New Orleans. Meet the boatmen, merchants, slave owners, free persons of color, musicians, drunks, and, of course, the young Abe Lincoln. See how the impressionable, curious Lincoln comes to terms with the complexities of the day and considers his future in this rollicking adventure.