by Ginny Dye
Joseph looked at him more closely. “You know something about that place.”
Matthew nodded. He was not interviewing these men to tell his own story, and he had not shared it with anyone else, but he felt Joseph needed to know how completely he understood. “Are you familiar with Rat Dungeon in Libby Prison?”
Joseph nodded. “It’s a hell hole,” he muttered. “I’ve talked to some of the men who made it out of there.”
“I was there for several months,” Matthew admitted.
“When?” Joseph demanded.
“The winter of 1863.” He wondered if Joseph would make the connection.
Joseph nodded and his eyes grew wide. “I heard about a journalist fellow who broke out of Libby Prison with some of his buddies, digging a tunnel and making sure lots of the other prisoners knew about it so they could escape too. You wouldn’t be…?”
Matthew nodded.
Joseph stared at him. “Well, if that doesn’t beat all! Tell me how you got out of there.”
Matthew shook his head. “It’s not important now. I’m here to tell your story, not mine,” he insisted. “I escaped, but you somehow managed to survive two and a half years in conditions that would have killed most men. I want to hear how you did it.”
Joseph stared at him for a long moment. “It was something my grandfather used to tell me,” he said softly.
Matthew was silent as Joseph closed his eyes.
“My grandfather used to tell me never to say that I couldn’t do something or that something seemed impossible or couldn’t be done, no matter how discouraged I got. He told me I’m only limited by what I allow myself to be limited by — my own mind.” Joseph smiled. “He told me I am the master of my own reality, and that when I understood that, absolutely anything in the world was possible.”
“Your grandfather was a wise man.”
“The wisest,” Joseph agreed. “Every time I thought I couldn’t keep going, I would see my grandfather saying those words. He used to tell me so many times I got sick of it, but I reckon he somehow knew I would need it.” He paused again. “I owe my life to my grandfather,” he said quietly. “I just hope he’s still alive so I can tell him when I get home.”
“Does your family know you’re still alive?” Matthew asked.
Joseph’s grin bloomed again. “They do now! I got a letter off to them about a week ago from Camp Fisk. I haven’t heard anything back, but I’ll bet big money they’ll all be waiting for me when I get off this boat in a few days.” His grin widened. “I reckon that is going to be the best day of my life,” he said softly.
Matthew smiled and laid his hand on his arm. “I reckon it will be,” he agreed. “Give me your parents’ address,” he added. “I’ll make sure you get a copy of the paper when your story comes out.”
Joseph scribbled down his address and lay back on the deck against a column. His face was tight with exhaustion. “I think I’ll just rest a little while,” he murmured, before he closed his eyes.
Matthew stared into his young, sunken face, heartbroken that a nineteen-year-old could have such deep wrinkles and pain etched into his face. He hoped his family was ready for his condition when he stepped off the boat, but surely Joseph must know how bad he looked. He had been staring at the mirror images of fellow prisoners for over two years. He shuddered as he imagined what this boy had experienced. He also prayed the rest of his young life would be full of easier times.
******
Peter strode from the gangplank and took what felt like his first easy breath in two days. Even though the decks of the Sultana were open-air, the crush of twenty-five hundred people — many of them ill — created a stench that permeated every pore in his body. He smiled as he watched hundreds of prisoners pour from the boat to head up the cobblestone wharf to the closest saloon so they could celebrate their freedom. He was sure alcohol was the last thing any of them needed right now, but he couldn’t begrudge their desire to escape the boat for a while.
The Sultana was being emptied of her hogsheads of sugar and cases of wine. He was glad some of the strain on the engines and boilers was being reduced.
A glance at his watch told him it was 6:30 pm. If he hurried, he should be able to get a telegraph off to his office. He strode through the crowded streets of Memphis, climbing the hills that took him high above the Mississippi River. He knew the city was situated on the Fourth Chickasaw Bluff, the highest elevation on the east bank of the Mississippi. Protected from the regular floods and raging torrents, by the 1850s it had outlasted all other competition from other river ports and claimed its title as the “capital” of the mid-south.
Though Tennessee had joined the Confederacy and Memphis had been largely pro-Confederacy, they were also the home state of President Johnson. He was certain Tennessee would be the first to re-enter the Union.
Peter smiled as he strode past the old offices of the Memphis Appeal newspaper. In spite of being on a different side of the conflict, he had to admire their determination to exist during the war. During the first year of the war, they had declared they would rather sink their presses at the bottom of the Mississippi than surrender. They loaded their equipment on boxcars and continued to operate as a refugee newspaper. He knew they moved five times to escape capture before finally being seized just ten days earlier. He had heard the news from a colleague in Vicksburg. He celebrated another marker of the war being over, even while feeling sympathy for those who resisted for so long. He could only hope they would use that same energy and determination to rebuild the Union.
There was a long line out of the telegraph office when he arrived. He frowned but relaxed when he realized he had plenty of time. The Sultana was not due to leave again until 11:30.
“Did you hear the news?”
Peter turned to the man who had just joined him in line. “What news?”
“They’ve killed Booth!”
Peter whistled. The search for Lincoln’s killer had taken twelve days and hundreds of men scouring the countryside. “Where did they find him?”
“Hiding out in a tobacco barn on a farm just south of Port Royal, Virginia,” the man sneered.
“Did he surrender?” Peter asked eagerly, knowing just what a crazy search it had been through the Maryland countryside and across the Rappahannock River.
“Not Booth! The man with him surrendered, but he yelled out that he preferred to come out and fight. The soldiers set the barn on fire,” he continued.
“I thought they had orders to take Booth alive?” Peter commented.
“They did. They set the fire to flush him out. One of the soldiers shot him in the neck.”
“Why?”
“We don’t have those kinds of details yet.”
Peter nodded and looked at the man more closely. “What paper do you work for?”
“The Illinois State Register,” he said promptly. “One newspaperman can always tell another. My name is Crandall Masters. You?”
“Peter Wilcher. I work for the Liberator in Massachusetts,” Peter responded with a firm handshake. “Did the bullet kill Booth?”
“Eventually. They dragged him to the porch of the farmhouse. He died three hours later,” he said with satisfaction. “I heard that he requested his mother be told that he died for his country.”
Peter sighed. Booth’s passions had led him to be the one to actually assassinate Lincoln, but he knew there were many who sympathized with his feelings and applauded his actions. Booth had been captured and killed, but it would do nothing to alleviate the hard feelings on either side.
Crandall looked at him closely. “Is this really the first you’ve heard of this?”
Peter nodded. “I just came off the Sultana down on the waterfront. I’ve been on the steamer for the last two days with a load of Union prisoners who are returning home.”
“Then you don’t know that General Johnston surrendered the last of the Confederate troops today,” Crandall said.
That earned a genuine smile from Peter. “Finally!
The war has been over since Appomattox, but this finalizes things now that the last standing army has surrendered.” He paused. “Did President Johnson honor Sherman’s armistice agreement with the Rebels?”
Crandall snorted. “Not a chance! He sent Grant down there to demand the same terms of surrender that Lee received. General Johnston really had no choice but to accept them.”
Peter nodded as he stepped up to the counter. It took him just a few moments to send a telegraph telling his editor he had collected many powerful stories from the Union prisoners. He had turned away when he heard his name called.
He turned back to the counter. “Yes?”
“You’ve got a telegraph here, Mr. Wilcher,” the agent said, handing him an envelope.
It took Peter just seconds to realize he would not be returning to the Sultana. His editor had directed him to travel to Springfield, Illinois to cover Lincoln’s final burial. The funeral train was winding its way through New York but would soon head across the Midwest, arriving in Illinois on May 3. Peter was to catch the train leaving Memphis the next morning.
He looked up and realized Crandall was just leaving the counter. “Looks like my plans have changed. I head for Springfield in the morning. Do you have a recommendation for a good hotel?”
“I’m staying at the Bell Tavern. It’s not fancy, but the food is good.”
“That works,” Peter replied. “Have you eaten yet? Food on board the Sultana is scarce. I’m starving!”
“Let’s go,” Crandall replied.
Peter gazed off toward the waterfront as they walked down the street toward the tavern. He would have told Matthew of the change in plans if he had any hope of finding him on the crowded steamer. As it was, he knew Matthew was in his element interviewing the soldiers. He would send him a telegraph in the morning that would be waiting for him when he arrived in Cairo with the prisoners. Both of them knew plans could change in a moment’s notice. Their paths would cross again.
******
Matthew was deep in conversation when he felt the engines start up again. The last five hours had flown by. He watched as the lights of Memphis receded, but all the steamer did was cross to the other side of the river and dock again.
“What’s going on?” one of the soldiers asked.
One of the crew was walking by at just that moment. “We’re taking on a load of coal,” he explained.
Matthew frowned. He had been relieved when the steamer had lost some of its freight in Memphis but now they were putting more on the overloaded vessel. His frown deepened as a cold drizzle began to fall. Many of the men crowding the boats had no blankets to use against the chill night air.
Flashes of lightning split the night air as the Sultana started back upriver at 1:00 am. Matthew stared down at the rapidly flowing water, his thoughts restless. Most of the men were sound asleep, but he just couldn’t relax. Strong spring storms had created flood conditions on the river. The Mississippi was always wide, but the floods had extended the river to more than four miles across. He could see nothing but dark, swirling water when the lightning flashed. Plowing upstream against the raging current had to put more of a strain on the engines and boilers.
Matthew had already given his blanket and coat to a sick soldier he found shivering on the hurricane deck, so he just hunched his shoulders against the cold rain and turned his thoughts south to Richmond. The people he cared about most were all in the brick home high above the city streets. It was easy to imagine the warmth and flickering lights, the laughter, the easy conversation. His heart ached with longing, but as he thought of all the stories he would have to tell when he landed, he knew he wouldn’t have chosen to be anywhere else. The knowledge helped a little as cold seeped into his bones.
To keep his mind occupied, he stared out over the steamer from his position on the bow. The pilot house, where the pilot manned the wheel, crowned the steamer’s superstructure. Beneath the pilot house were three decks: main, boiler, and hurricane. Matthew frowned when he realized the Sultana’s upper decks were sagging under the mass of passengers. He knew that light, flimsy wood had been used in the construction to help reduce the weight of the boat so they could carry more cargo.
On the main deck lay a battery of four boilers, each measuring eighteen feet in length, and filled with steam and boiling water. Matthew had already located the small patch used to repair the leak before they departed from Vicksburg. With nothing but silence to occupy him, Matthew thought over what he knew about steamers. A boiler on a steamer contained, at 150 pounds of pressure, enough energy to hurl the boiler over two miles into the air. The heated water in the boilers had about the same energy as a pound of gunpowder. The idea of them exploding was terrifying.
He pushed that thought away and continued his examination of the boat. Beneath the boilers was a coal-burning furnace running nearly the breadth of the steamer. Constant firing was necessary to maintain the steam in the boilers. Matthew shuddered when he thought about the other boats on the Mississippi that had caught fire and burned up. As he stared out over the crowded, sagging decks, all he could do was hope the Sultana had the ability to reach Cairo.
“Can’t sleep?”
Matthew looked up as Joseph settled down next to him. “No. You?”
“Nope. Just thinking about getting home in a couple days. I learned to get along without much sleep in prison.”
Matthew thought about the long nights of lying sleepless on the cold floors of Libby Prison. “I know what you mean.”
“Where are you headed after here?” Joseph asked.
Matthew smiled. “Back to—”
He never finished his sentence, as the world around him exploded into flames, hissing steam, and the screams of dying men.
******
At almost 2:00 am on the morning of April 27, three of the Sultana’s four boilers erupted with a volcanic fury that resounded across the countryside.
Chapter Ten
The force of the explosion threw Matthew against the bow railing. He lay gasping for breath as heat and smoke swirled around him. His mind told him there had been an explosion, but the reality was not truly registering. Until the noises began to filter through the madness…
Screams ripped through the night — death cries rising through the air.
Hissing steam provided a backdrop as the decks of the Sultana cracked and collapsed from the weight of their human freight.
Matthew’s breath choked on a cry as the massive smokestacks toppled and crashed onto the decks and the men who lay in their path.
Flames shot through all of it, outlining the hundreds of bodies strewn around the decks.
The screams…They were constant and never-ending.
Live coals and splintered timber shot into the night sky like fireworks. Matthew watched in horrified wonder as the pilot house flew into the air and fell into the dark water that now glowed like a lantern, illuminating the bodies already bobbing around the destruction raining down from the sky.
The frantic neighing of horses, the braying of mules, and the squeals of terrified hogs added to the cacophony of sound.
Matthew stared in fascinated terror as men, lucky enough to have lived through the blast that hurled them into the frigid water, held on to pieces of wreckage or floundering horses.
He shrank back against the railing as boiler fragments, pipes, bricks, and machinery flew through the air with killing speed. He barely dodged a piece of timber that impaled a wide-eyed soldier just yards from his position. Matthew could only be glad the soldier died instantly, his blank eyes staring in his direction before he slumped over on the deck.
Matthew held his fist to his mouth to stop the nausea as bodies and dismembered limbs flew through the air to land in heaps all around him. He bit back a cry as a bloody leg landed just inches from his own.
He could do nothing but continue to stare as men, their clothes burned or blown from their bodies, stumbled out of the steamy fog, their skin charred and burned. Their faces gaped
in contorted screams as they dived over the railing of the destroyed steamer to escape the flames. His horror grew as he watched them sink beneath the black waters.
His terrified gaze was wrested back to the boat as the screams of men trapped beneath burning embers rose on the wind and then slowly died away.
Another voice gradually cut through his horror.
“Matthew! Matthew!”
Matthew slowly turned his shocked gaze away from the flames and realized Joseph was lying on the deck a few feet from him, pinned beneath a piece of timber.
“Help me! Please, help me!” Joseph pleaded, his eyes wide with fright and pain.
The look on his face pierced Matthew’s shock and disbelief. Muttering both an oath and a prayer, he leaped to his feet, stunned to find he was completely unharmed save for a few minor cuts from flying debris. He rushed to Joseph’s side and managed to pry the timber from his chest.
Joseph took several deep breaths as he stared around him wildly. “What happened?” he gasped.
“The boilers blew,” Matthew answered grimly. Now that the shock had passed, it was time to help whomever he could. “Stay here,” he ordered. “I’ve got to see what I can do to help.”
“I’ll come,” Joseph gasped.
Matthew would have laughed at the idea of help from the emaciated soldier who had barely survived Andersonville if it hadn’t been so heartbreakingly tragic. He took a moment to kneel down in front of him. “You stay here,” he ordered more gently. “You’ve given enough. I will be back,” he promised.
When Matthew turned away, he had no idea whether he would be able to keep his promise. He picked his way across the boiler deck until he was stopped by a huge opening. A wild groan escaped his lips when he leaned over to look down. Fire had already erupted in the wreckage of the main deck below, creating the closest thing to hell that he could ever envision.
Mangled, scalded bodies were heaped and piled amid the burning debris. The smells of smoke and burning flesh beat against his face. The cabin was cut in two, with broken planks pointing down into the flames as if inviting the flames to devour the upper decks. In moments, the planks were bright with fire.