Last Tragedy of the Civil War
by Roger Weston
by Roger Weston
One of the most amazing
shipwrecks in American history is largely unknown. The ship was called the Sultana, and she ran a route on the
Mississippi River, transporting cargo and passengers. On April 27, 1865, she
swung up to the docks at Vicksburg, where her lines were made fast. It was then
that the engineer noticed something worrisome: the boilers were leaking. After
evaluating their options, the engineers and captain decided that the boilers
would be repaired straightaway.
Vicksberg, at that
time, was swarming with semi-invalid civil war veterans. These Union soldiers
were newly-released POWs. They’d come from various prisons where they had been
sadly neglected. They were diseased, half–starved skeletons with many wounds
that needed proper medical attention.
Because the Civil War
had just ended eighteen days ago, the government was paying boat captains for
every veteran that they shipped up river. Soldiers began boarding the Sultana even as it was being repaired.
Despite their sad
physical condition, they were in high spirits like Captain J.C. Mason had
never seen before. They were singing, smiling, shouting, and dancing with joy.
They had just gotten their lives back and were headed home. Many of them had
expected to die in the camps. Now they’d literally been given a second life.
They were ecstatic. There weren’t just a few soldiers on the Sultana either. There were lots of them.
They poured onto the paddle wheeler like a flood. In no time at all, the Sultana was full, packed well beyond
capacity. In no way was she built for this many passengers. It was a dangerous
situation. The Sultana was legally
entitled to carry 376 passengers. It was presently carrying 2,300. The captain
was nervous, but he felt he must follow through with his mission of returning the veterans to their homes.
The engineers were
lively, and wasted no time. The boilers were quickly repaired, and the Sultana headed upriver, her big paddle
wheels thrashing the water.
Despite being grossly
overloaded and running against the current, the Sultana performed well for the next couple of days. At Memphis, the
boiler showed more signs of leaking. Once again, repairs were done. The boat
moved on, heading into the current with over five times more passengers than
she was allowed to carry.
As it turned out, the
current was stronger than usual. At 2 a.m., they were only a few miles upstream
from Memphis. The weighed-down boat was really working hard to make progress.
It was earning every inch against the flood-stage currents. Then the boilers
failed and a tremendous explosion lit up the ship. It was so powerful that the
boom was heard all the way back in Memphis. The detonation blew hundreds of
sleeping soldiers into the river. These half-invalid men landed in freezing
water, splashing down below the surface along with half of the boat’s
superstructure. A large portion of the boat had been obliterated. It was a
miracle that men survived both the explosion and the shock of landing in the
river during their sleep. Because there was wreckage in the water, many soldiers
were able to grab onto some flotsam and hold on for their life. This was a rude
awakening, but also a lucky one.
Sadly, many of the men
could not swim and were also malnourished and weak. At the same time, pieces of
wreckage were quickly claimed. When too many men tried to climb on, the
wreckage was driven under water. Then panicked drowning men grabbed onto other
men to use them as flotation devices. In many cases, both men sunk and never
came up. In other cases, survivors drove away those who would take them under.
It was an easy choice to make to drive them off and let them drown; it was
frequently a hard memory to live with.
The ice-cold water proved too much for many of the worn-out men. Hundreds of them died from the shock because they could not swim.
Back on the boat,
people were fighting over lumber. They were tearing away lumber wherever they
could find it. Everyone wanted a flotation device. Only the most determined
were successful.
One man found a
ten-foot alligator in a wooden cage. He bayoneted the beast and rolled the cage
into the river. He dove in and clung to that cage until a boat picked him up. A
man who been caged up himself for so long now owed his life to a cage.
Three other men held
onto a bale of hay and floated all the way to Memphis.
James K. Brady had
awoken to find that he was on fire, or at least his clothes were. Most of his
hair had burned off. He and his friend David Ettleman put out the flames on
Brady, but the boat was also burning. Next, they rushed around looking for a
flotation device. They had no luck, so they went to the hurricane deck, where
they saw an astounding scene.
As Brady said, “Oh,
what a sight met our gaze! There were some killed in the explosion, lying in
the bottom of the boat, being trampled upon, while some were crying and
praying. Many were cursing while others were singing. That sight I shall never
forget; I often see it in my sleep, and wake with a start.”
Brady and Ettleman
found a gangplank, which they grabbed onto just as it was going over the side. Brady
later explained that “About fifteen or sixteen of us that had stuck to the
plank. But now a new danger had seized me, as someone grabbed me by the right
foot and it seemed as though it was in a vise; try as I would, I could not
shake him off. I gripped the plank with all the strength that I had, and then I
got my left foot between his hand and my foot and while holding on to the plank
with both hands I pried him loose with my left foot, he taking my sock along
with him... He sank out of sight and I saw him no more.” Such incidents were
common, but that didn’t make it any easier. Anyway, Brady’s troubles weren’t
over.
The gangplank flipped
over during the struggle, and several other men were lost. Brady’s spirits were
plummeting. He was losing hope. He was weak, having lost thirty percent of his
body weight in prison. In his darkest moments, it was his friend who helped
him: “Every little while he would call out some encouraging word to me to keep
up my spirits.”
On the burning ship, Chester
Berry was fighting his own battle for survival. He got himself a piece of cabin
door casing, but hesitated to jump in the water. The flames had not reached the
bow yet, but the real reason was what he saw in the water. As he explained, it was “literally black with human beings, many of
whom were sinking and taking others with them. Being a good swimmer, and having
board enough to save me, even if I were not, I concluded to wait till the rush
was over.” To jump into a crowd of drowning men would have been extremely
dangerous.
Remaining on board a
little longer gave him time to look around and see how humans responded to a
situation where they were facing death, men who had faced it before, but
finally thought they were getting another shot at life. Then suddenly they saw
that second chance slipping away. Berry said, “The horrors of that night will
never be effaced from my memory — such swearing, praying, shouting and crying I
had never heard; and much of it from the same throat — imprecations followed by
petitions to the Almighty, denunciations by bitter weeping.”
Berry saw that
different men responded differently. He saw men who would fight tooth and nail
to survive. He saw one man whose flotation devices had been taken from him by
stronger men, and he would not fight anymore. He could have gotten more wood
from the pile, but he had had enough. He was done fighting. Berry was angry at
his defeatist attitude and let him be. For years, it would haunt him that he
didn’t do more to help that broken man. Berry was haunted by a man who would
not help himself.
Finally, the waters
cleared of people, and Berry dove in. He struggled with the current for a time
and on account of the ice-cold water, he became completely discouraged to the
point where he decided it wasn’t worth it to struggle any longer. He realized
that he would drown in spite of his efforts, so it would just be easier to give
up and die. He started to do just that when a miracle happened. As Berry puts
it, “I was transported for the moment to ‘the old house at home,’ and that I
was wending my way slowly up the path from the road gate to the house… as plainly as I ever heard my mother's voice, I heard it that evening.” Their family had always prayed together. His mother
said the prayer because his father was mute. Now Berry actually heard her pray
“God save my boy.”
After that, Berry’s
attitude changed. He knew that his mother was expecting him to return home from
war and how much it meant to her. He said, “I fiercely clutched the board and
hissed between my now firmly set teeth ‘Mother, by the help of God, your prayer
shall be answered.’''
Berry ended up clinging
to a tree until a boat rescued him.
James K. Brady, whose friend’s
encouraging words gave him strength, was another survivor. Brady lasted till
daylight and they managed to get to shore. Another man crawled ashore with
them, but he was so badly burned that he died three minutes after reaching
land.
Eighteen hundred other men also
passed away. They had survived the Civil War, including time in POW camps. They
were on their way home to see their families. But destiny had other plans.
More people died on the
Sultana than on the Titanic. It is the worst shipwreck in
American history, but few know of it. To some degree it was overshadowed by
greater events and bigger news. Lincoln had been assassinated only a week
earlier. His assassin, John Wilkes Booth had just been apprehended the previous
day.
The impact on the eighteen hundred
families was no doubt profound. But the 1,800 men are not forgotten. We honor them
for their sacrifice for their country and their fellow man. This was the last
tragedy of the Civil War, but it was more than that. It was the loss of 1,800
brothers. Their story reminds us of who they were and what they did.
Author's note:
Author's note:
After learning about the worst maritime disaster of all time, resulting in an even greater loss of life than the RMS Titanic, I wrote FATAL RETURN. This little known tragedy took place on a cold and dark night during WWII. I was so fascinated about the circumstances surrounding this shipwreck that I wrote about it in my novel FATAL RETURN.
$2.99 on Amazon.com
If you enjoyed this story, sign up for my email list here: Weston's list
