Sabotage of the Sultana…
Remembrances of some survivors:
Hodges is one of those that was immediately covered by flaming coal that must have come from the furnace.
Wiley J. Hodges
Excerpted from “Loss of the Sultana and Reminiscences of Survivors” by Rev. Chester D. Berry, 1892
* * *
My bunk was near the boiler, and on the night of the terrible accident I lay with a blanket over me. I was awakened by an explosion an found myself covered with burning coals from the furnaces. I was not long in springing to my feet and throwing my burning blanket away and getting away from that locality.
Clearly not a big fan of William C. Streetor. One wonders if Raudebaugh knew that Streetor himself had been a Union soldier. Neither the Memphis nor St. Louis articles on Streetor say anything about “chiseled a hole” in a lump of coal. This seems to be Raudebaugh’s own interpretation. He’d apparently never heard of a Courtenay torpedo.
Samuel H. Raudebaugh
Excerpted from “Loss of the Sultana and Reminiscences of Survivors” by Rev. Chester D. Berry, 1892
* * *
Now, remember, kind reader, we were on our way home from the cruel war, it being virtually over. We were on our way home from those horrid dens of cruelty and starvation. Yes, we had lived through it all, and hoped, “Yes, expected soon to see loved ones at home and enjoy at least some of the peace we had fought to restore. Home! Yes, home under the stars and stripes, once more. While thus pleasantly meditating, all of a sudden, about half-past one o’clock A.M. one of the boilers exploded and the greater part of that human load was blown into the river, while sound asleep –some to awake in the cold water and some in eternity. Those that were not blown off at the time of the explosion were soon compelled to jump into the river so as to escape burning to death, for the boat quickly caught fire and burned to the water’s edge. About 1,750 of that homeward-bound company perished then and there, and several hundred more poor fellows died in the next ten days from wounds, burns and scalds. I say, fearless of truthful contradiction, that the explosion of the Sultana was the greatest calamity of the war against the slave-holding rebels, and it was the greatest steamboat disaster known to history.
You will naturally ask two questions, first, “How did you escape?” and second, “How did the calamity occur?” To the latter question I can but give my opinion, and that has never changed since I got ashore and took time to think. I believe that some enemy of our Union had a hand in crowding so many of us on the boat, and that he knew when that southern sugar was taken off that the rest of the cargo and the boat would meet the fate that followed. I believe that some ally of Jeff. Davis put a torpedo in the coal, while we were at Memphis, where it would go into the furnace for the first that would be built after leaving Memphis, with the intent to destroy the boat and its mass of human heroes on their way home. I can say that in May, 1888, a man in the south, William C. Streeter, St. Louis, Mo, said that he knew the man, Charles Dale, who said he chiseled a hole in a large chunk of coal, put the torpedo therein which did the deadly work, carried it with his own hands and laid it where it must soon go into the furnace.
I will say one thing more and that is, if I were in authority I would arrest and hang the man who knew so high-handed and bloody a murderer and did not try to have him brought to justice for so gigantic a crime. [which is extremely unfair to Streetor who truly sounded upset that Louden hadn’t been hung in 1864]