We lay three days in New Orleans, but the captain
did not succeed in finding another pilot; so he proposed
that I should stand a daylight watch, and leave the
night watches to George Ealer. But I was afraid;
I had never stood a watch of any sort by myself, and
I believed I should be sure to get into trouble in
the head of some chute, or ground the boat in a near
cut through some bar or other. Brown remained
in his place; but he would not travel with me.
So the captain gave me an order on the captain of
the ‘A. T. Lacey,’ for a passage to
St. Louis, and said he would find a new pilot there
and my steersman’s berth could then be resumed.
The ‘Lacey’ was to leave a couple of days
after the ‘Pennsylvania.’
The night before the ‘Pennsylvania’ left,
Henry and I sat chatting on a freight pile on the
levee till midnight. The subject of the chat,
mainly, was one which I think we had not exploited
before—steamboat disasters. One was
then on its way to us, little as we suspected it;
the water which was to make the steam which should
cause it, was washing past some point fifteen hundred
miles up the river while we talked;—but
it would arrive at the right time and the right place.
We doubted if persons not clothed with authority were
of much use in cases of disaster and attendant panic;
still, they might be of some use; so we decided
that if a disaster ever fell within our experience
we would at least stick to the boat, and give such
minor service as chance might throw in the way.
Henry remembered this, afterward, when the disaster
came, and acted accordingly.
The ‘Lacey’ started up the river two days
behind the ‘Pennsylvania.’ 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
