April 1865 was perhaps the most trying of months during the years 1861 to 1865.
While it is true that Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia had stacked their arms for the last time on April 9, and General Joseph E. Johnston surrendered on the 26th, Kirby Smith and Richard Taylor still had armies in the field and the war was not quite over.
Abraham
Lincoln was barely six weeks into his second term when John Wilkes
Booth sent a bullet into the presidents brain on the 14th.
Lincoln succumbed to the wound early the next day.
The
mood of the country was at once hopeful and despairing, mixed with a
good measure of indignation. This April was like no other during the
American Civil War.
April
1865 also saw the worst maritime disaster the United States has ever
witnessed. The explosion and burning of the packet steamer Sultana.
That sad event also
ranks number five on the list of
peacetime maritime disasters in terms of casualties. [1] (Although
technically the war was still going on.)
The
Sultana was built at Cincinnati, Ohio and put into service in January
1863. She displaced about 1,700 tons, drew seven feet of water and
was powered by four tubular boilers [2] turning her two massive side
wheels. Her regular run was New Orleans to St. Louis and she carried
passengers and freight.
In
the very early, inky black darkness of the morning of April 27, at
least one of the steamers boilers exploded. She immediately caught
fire, and passengers, at least those that were able, scrambled for
safety, which usually meant over the side and into the cold, flood
swollen Mississippi River. On this trip there was upward of 2,000
souls aboard, most of whom were Union soldiers, fresh from prison
pens from across the Confederacy.
The
exact details of who was to blame for the tremendous loss of life and
theories of the cause of the explosion are not covered in this post.
Dealt with here is the human aspect of that sad morning. These are
snippets of first hand accounts from survivors.
 |
| The SULTANA, April 26, 1865, the day before the disaster. |
Hiram
Allison, Company G, Ninth Indiana Cavalry, captured at Sulphur
Trestle, Louisiana, September 25, 1864, imprisoned at Cahaba, Alabama
(Castle Morgan). He writes:
“[I]
glanced around the burning wreck and saw that I would have to go,so I
jumped from the cabin deck into the water. I remained there for two
or three hours and then came across a horse trough with a comrade on
each end of it. I took the center. When I caught up with the two
comrades they were both praying. When I got on with them I said:
“That was a terrible disaster.” They made no reply but kept right
on praying. I said no more to them and when it was light enough for
me to see they were gone. What became of them I never knew.” [3]
Incidents
like this are a recurring theme throughout the accounts of survivors.
Many were able to either throw pieces of debris from the wreck into
the water for a raft or had the good fortune to find a piece in the
water large enough to accommodate three or four men. Sadly, the loss
of comrades that slipped away without a murmur and unbeknownst to
their friends was common. Months of prison life had taken a terrible
toll on these souls, and given the swollen river and weakened
constitutions, it is a wonder that anyone survived.
P.S.
Atchley, a corporal in Company K, Third Tennessee (US), has an
interesting tale to tell, one that reminds us that decency, even in
the bitterest of times, can show through even from an unlikely
source. He relates:
“[I] landed on the Arkansas shore without any assistance whatever. There I found a Confederate soldier who came to my relief, and took me to a house nearby, and gave me something to eat, and I felt something like myself again, thanks to the Ruler of the Universe. The said Confederate soldier worked hard to save the lives of the drowning men,and brought to shore in his little dugout about 15 of them.” [4]
“[I] landed on the Arkansas shore without any assistance whatever. There I found a Confederate soldier who came to my relief, and took me to a house nearby, and gave me something to eat, and I felt something like myself again, thanks to the Ruler of the Universe. The said Confederate soldier worked hard to save the lives of the drowning men,and brought to shore in his little dugout about 15 of them.” [4]
Even
in bitter defeat, the Rebel soldier came to the aid of the enemy in
distress. Perhaps it was his realization that the past was gone and
the future was still to be faced, and in some small way his action
was a way toward his own healing. No name is given to this man, but
at least 15 men would owe their lives and their own healing to him.
William
Boor, a private in Company D, 64th Ohio Infantry had not
been long in the army that terrible morning, and much of his service
was spent as a prisoner of war. He enlisted on October 5, 1864 and
was captured at the Battle of Franklin, Tennessee November 30, 1864.
He spent the remainder of the war in pens at Meridian, Mississippi,
Cahaba and Selma Alabama. He, too has a harrowing tale to tell,
beginning almost as soon as he abandoned the burning Sultana:
“Here I met with an accident which came near proving fatal to me. I got into one of those whirlpools in the water,and while there I could not manage my board. (He had, like so many others, thrown a piece of the wreck into the water to use as a raft) I finally got tired out, and then for the first time I thought I must give up the struggle and drown as I could not get away from there. I finally concluded to dive for the bottom and get a good start, not thinking that the water was forty or fifty feet deep in the channel. I went down but it was not long before I was in need of the fresh air. When I came near the surface of the water, as luck would have it, I cleared the pool and got my board.”
Boor
would end up rescuing another man with his board and another piece of
debris. Both were non-swimmers, and eventually they would be hauled
out of the black river by yet another[?] Confederate soldier, this
one a captain with a raft of rails, again on the Arkansas shore, and
again no name given. [5]
Acting
Master's Mate William B. Floyd has the vantage of rescuer to the
survivors of the disaster. Serving on the USS Grosbeak, he tells of
rescuing twelve soldiers on a raft, “or a lot of wreckage”, while
at the same time ignoring the cries from someone stranded in the
flooded timber some distance from the raft. Working from one of
Grosbeaks boats, Floyd offers his testimony:
“I
found the nearest on a raft or a lot of wreckage. There were twelve
or perhaps more and were raising a terrible cry for help. It was yet
dark, and I could not tell if there were twenty or a hundred there,
but away farther toward the shore was a lone voice, calling in the
most piteous tone for help, that appealed to me so that it was hard
for me to steer my boat for the raft, instead of hastening to his
aid. I had to leave the poor fellow to his fate.[6]
Of
the twelve men on the raft Floyd learned very little but he overheard
a pair of them speaking of their sleeping berths aboard Sultana:
“One was sleeping above the boilers and said that the first thing he knew he was flying up in the air and when he came down it was in the water. The other, sleeping under the boiler was not injured, as the force of the explosion was upward.” [7]
Erastus
Winters of Company K, 50th
Ohio Infantry, had been in the army since the summer of 1862 was
captured at the Battle of Franklin, November 30, 1864. His home for
the next several months was also at Cahaba. He perhaps sums up the
minds of all the survivors with these words:
“No artist, I care not how clever he may be with his brush, can paint a picture as full of horrors as the picture that was painted on my memory, that April morning, 1865.” [8]
These are just a few of the voices from the Sultana. The accounts here were related some years after the fact. Winters' story was told 40 years beyond Sultana. The memories did not fade or go away and would haunt these men until the end of their lives. The author/compiler of Loss of the Sultana, Chester D. Berry, gives his own testament to that fact, 27 years after the wreck:
“...
I came across one man who was weeping bitterly and wringing his hands
as if in terrible agony, continually crying 'O dear! O dear!' I
supposed the poor fellow was seriously hurt. My sympathies were
aroused at once. Approaching him, I took him by the shoulder and
asked where he was hurt. 'I'm not hurt at all.' he said 'but I can't
swim, I've got to drown. O dear.'”
With
that, Berry shows the man the small piece of board he was going to
use as a raft, and points to a pile of broken timbers and suggests
the man get himself one. The other soldier continues:
“But I did get one, and someone snatched it away from me.”
“Well,
get another.” said I.
“I
did.” said he, “And they took that away from me.”
“Well
then” said I, “get another.”
“Why?”
said he. “What would be the use,they would take it from me. O dear,
I tell you there is no use; I've got to drown. I can't swim.”
The
man had lost all hope. Berry, himself a recently released prisoner
thrust into a traumatic situation, relates what happened next:
“By
this time I was thoroughly disgusted, and giving him a shove I said,
'drown then you fool.'
“I
have been sorry all these years for that very act.” [9]
Chester
Berry was with Company I, 20th Michigan Infantry, captured
at Cold Harbor in June of 1864, and recently a prisoner at
Andersonville, Georgia.
Others
tell of seeing a bridal couple aboard the doomed vessel, some tell of
the ladies of the Sanitary Commission that perished that morning.
There are claims of Rebel prisoners aboard, and a compliment of Union
soldiers, under arms, that were traveling northward with their late
prisoner comrades. Among the lost were men, women, and children,
passengers that paid a fare for a trip North.
Coming
as it did in the wake of Abraham Lincoln's assassination and
occurring far from the eastern population centers, it did not garner
the attention one would expect from such a disaster. Most of the
soldiers on board were Westerners anyway, at least that is reason the
early writers blame for lack of coverage. Families of the people lost
would feel it long afterward as much as any battle touched the
families of those slain on “fields of glory”. 1,547 lives were
lost “officially” [10] but many more may have perished in the
explosion and fire or drowned in the turbulent river. Many were never
found.
Sultana
is a sad epitaph to the national nightmare that was the American
Civil War.
The
Picket
Sources**
1-
List of maritime disasters, wikipedia, retrieved from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maritime_disasters
2-
Trudeau, Noah A., Death on the River, Naval
History Magazine, August 2009, Volume 23, Number 4, retrieved from
http://www.usni.org/magazines/navalhistory/2009-08/death-river
Mr.
Trudeau lists Sultana's displacement
as 719 tons.
3-Berry,
Chester D., Loss of the Sultana and Reminiscences of
survivors, , 1892 pp 33-34.
Retrieved from http://books.google.com
4-Ibid, p34
5-Ibid pp 59-60
6-
Taylor, Joseph, The Sultana Disaster,
Indiana Historical Society, Volume 5, Number 3, 1913. p 182
retrieved from http://books.google.com
7-Ibid, p185
8-Winters, Erastus, In the
50th Ohio Serving Uncle Sam:Memoirs of one
who wore the Blue,1905, p168 retrieved from
9-Berry, pp 50-51
10- SS Sultana from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Sultana
as listed from US Customs Service
Photo from Library of Congress
retrieved from http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/cwp/
**Loss
of the Sultana and Reminiscences of survivors has
a list of soldiers supposed to have been aboard the Sultana that
morning and as near as could be ascertained, the names of the lost
are marked with an asterisk. The list is not alphabetical and begins
on page 385. This book contains a great many recollections of the
soldiers, and may prove useful to genealogists.
