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 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 a