We touched at Greenville, Mississippi, a couple of days out,
and somebody shouted–
‘The “Pennsylvania” is blown up at Ship Island, and a hundred
and fifty lives lost!’
At Napoleon, Arkansas, the same evening, we got an extra,
issued by a Memphis paper, which gave some particulars.
It mentioned my brother, and said he was not hurt.
Further up the river we got a later extra. My brother was
again mentioned; but this time as being hurt beyond help.
We did not get full details of the catastrophe until we reached Memphis.
This is the sorrowful story–
It was six o’clock on a hot summer morning. The ‘Pennsylvania’
was creeping along, north of Ship Island, about sixty miles below
Memphis on a half-head of steam, towing a wood-flat which was fast
being emptied. George Ealer was in the pilot-house-alone, I think;
the second engineer and a striker had the watch in the engine room;
the second mate had the watch on deck; George Black, Mr. Wood,
and my brother, clerks, were asleep, as were also Brown and
the head engineer, the carpenter, the chief mate, and one striker;
Captain Klinefelter was in the barber’s chair, and the barber was
preparing to shave him. There were a good many cabin passengers aboard,
and three or four hundred deck passengers–so it was said at the time–
and not very many of them were astir. The wood being nearly all out
of the flat now, Ealer rang to ‘come ahead’ full steam, and the next
moment four of the eight boilers exploded with a thunderous crash,
and the whole forward third of the boat was hoisted toward the sky!
The main part of the mass, with the chimneys, dropped upon the boat again,
a mountain of riddled and chaotic rubbish–and then, after a little,
fire broke out.
Many people were flung to considerable distances, and fell in the river;
among these were Mr. Wood and my brother, and the carpenter.
The carpenter was still stretched upon his mattress when he struck
the water seventy-five feet from the boat. Brown, the pilot,
and George Black, chief clerk, were never seen or heard of after
the explosion. The barber’s chair, with Captain Klinefelter
in it and unhurt, was left with its back overhanging vacancy–
everything forward of it, floor and all, had disappeared;
and the stupefied barber, who was also unhurt, stood with one toe
projecting over space, still stirring his lather unconsciously,
and saying, not a word.
When George Ealer saw the chimneys plunging aloft in front of him,
he knew what the matter was; so he muffled his face in the lapels of
his coat, and pressed both hands there tightly to keep this protection
in its place so that no steam could get to his nose or mouth.
He had ample time to attend to these details while he was going up
and returning. He presently landed on top of the unexploded boilers,
forty feet below the former pilot-house, accompanied by his wheel
and a rain of other stuff, and enveloped in a cloud of scalding steam.
All of the many who breathed that steam, died; none escaped.
But Ealer breathed none of it. He made his way to the free air
as quickly as he could; and when the steam cleared away he returned
and climbed up on the boilers again, and patiently hunted
out each and every one of his chessmen and the several joints
of his flute.
By this time the fire was beginning to threaten. Shrieks and
groans filled the air. A great many persons had been scalded,
a great many crippled; the explosion had driven an iron crowbar
through one man’s body–I think they said he was a priest.
He did not die at once, and his sufferings were very dreadful.
A young French naval cadet, of fifteen, son of a French admiral,
was fearfully scalded, but bore his tortures manfully.
Both mates were badly scalded, but they stood to their
posts, nevertheless. They drew the wood-boat aft, and they
and the captain fought back the frantic herd of frightened
immigrants till the wounded could be brought there and placed
in safety first.
When Mr. Wood and Henry fell in the water, they struck out for shore,