Missed my stop...

     The tragedy of the “Sultana”

An April 27, 1865 released Union prisoners boarded the steamship Sultana, headed for Cairo, Illinois,  hoping it would be the last they saw of the infernal South.  The Government was paying the ship’s Captain $5.00 a man, and by kicking back $1.15 to corrupt Union officers to look the other way, the ship’s crew loaded the boat with as many men as would fit.  Although the steamer’s boiler had developed a bulge the day before, the Captain opted to cover the bulge with an iron plate rather than lose the two or three days needed for proper repair.  An estimated 2,300 POW’s were loaded on board a ship rated to hold 376 people.

At 2 AM on April 27, the repaired boiler exploded, and two others went up soon after, spreading fire quickly through the middle of the ship.  Panicked men jumped overboard rather than attempting to fight the fire.  The smokestacks collapsed on scores of men.  The fire quickly swept toward the stern, and more men jumped into the fast moving Mississippi.

When Union Navy gunboats arrived from Memphis, it was too late for most.  Of the 2,500 passengers who left Vicksburg two days earlier, only 600 ultimately survived.  The fire, steam, wreckage and river took the lives of 1,900 Americans that day.  

The burnt ruin of the Sultana floated down river, and sank ignobly into the deep muck opposite Memphis, where she lies today.

Statement of Ann Annis, survivor, who lost her husband and daughter in the tragedy:

Widow of Lt. Harvey Annis, 51 U.S.C.T.

Being duly sworn testifies as follow:

11 May 1865

I embarked with my husband on board the steamer Sultana at Viksburg on the 24th Ult. My husband was not a paroled prisoner but had resigned. Sometime during the night when both of us were awake, we heard a loud noise, something like the rattling of iron. My husband immediately got up, then looking into the cabin seeing that there was a considerable steam there, and fearing that it would come into the stateroom, he closed the door and tried to open the one leading out to the guards, but this was jammed by something, and someone outside said we are all stove in. My husband then put a life-preserver upon me and one upon himself, and took me and my child to the stern of the boat. He let himself down to the lower deck with the child, and I followed him, but as I was descending the rope a man from above jumped on me and knocked me into the hold of the vessel. From this I was extricated, and my husband, with our child, jumped overboard. I followed as soon as I could but the life-preserver was not placed on me right and I held onto the rudder till I was obliged to let go by the fire.

While I remained there I heard a second explosion which seemed to be made up of three great reports like the explosion of shells or gunpowder. By this explosion there seemed to be a great deal of fire thrown all over the water about the boat to a considerable distance from her. I was obliged to take to a small piece of board and upon this I was saved. Great fear was felt by everybody on account of the large number of passengers and the boat being top heavy. The clerk or mate pointed out to my husband and myuself the sagging down of the hurricane deck in spite of extra stanchions which were put in a great many places. The boat was very much crowded, but the men behaved very well indeed. There was no carousing or quarrelling, and only little moving about. The boat was perfectly quiet at the time of the explosion and was running very smoothly and not fast.

On April 26, 1865, Sergeant Thomas P. ”Boston“ Corbett shot and killed the alleged assassin of Abraham Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth in a barn in Bowling Green, Virginia.

Corbett was a eccentric character, who was born in England and made his home in New York.  It is thought that his occupation as a hatter, which involved the use of mercury in production, contributed to his mental illness.  Shortly after the death of his  wife in childbirth, Corbett converted to Methodism and began to grow his hair long to emulate Jesus.  He evidenced even more bizarre behavior when he castrated himself with a pair of scissors, then went to dinner before seeking medical attention.

As a member of the 16th New York Cavalry, Corbett had been directed by the Secretary of War to bring Booth in alive.  Hovever, after seeing Booth moving inside the surrounded barn, Corbett took aim with his Colt revolver and mortally wounded him.  Although he at first claimed self defense, he later stated that “Providence directed me”.

Perhaps this was an example of Karma, with mentally ill fanatics cancelling each other out.

Beware the ides of March, in November…All three Booth brothers performed in a performance of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar to benefit the placement of a statue of the bard in New York’s Gramercy Park.  The performance, which took place in the famous Winter Garden Theater on November 25th, 1864 was a sold out, one night show.  As the soon to be assassin had his moment in the footlights, Confederate sympathizers attempted to burn down New York City by setting fire to a building next door to the Winter Garden.

The Booth’s performance was interrupted when someone overheard a whispered warning of the encroaching fire, and a stampede nearly ensued. A police inspector in the audience, believe it or not, yelled at the crowd to keep their seats saying that the man raising the warning was drunk.  

They did, and saw one of the last performances by all three Booths on the same stage.

Covering a 17 year period in France, from 1815 to 1832, Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables (The Miserable) was an astounding 510,000 word masterpiece when published in April of 1862.  Hugo was a well known French poet and exile, for having called Emperor Napoleon III a traitor to the republic. Buoyed by a pre-publishing advertising campaign that would likely rival the Harry Potter mania, the novel quickly became translated into various languages and was successful throughout Europe.

The English version was extremely popular in the war torn United States, on both sides of the conflict.  Although at 1200 pages the novel was rarely found in the pack of the average soldier, many civilians at home wrote that they were reading it while anxiously awaiting their loved ones return. Some Confederate soldiers pridefully modified the book’s title to describe themselves and the ragtag Army of Northern Virginia under their new leader, calling themselves “Lee’s Miserables”.