The Sun.
London, England, 1862-09-11 00:00:00

TERRIBLE SI EA3IBOAT DISASTER.

(From the Memphis Bulletin, Aug. 22.)
On Wednesday, the steamboat Acacia, com-
' manded by Captain Malvern, left this port for
Helena. Her cabin was crowded with passengers,
estimated at about 150 persons. They ware most
of them soldiers on their return to their regiments
at Helena. There were six ladies, stated to be the
wives of officers among them. There were about
75 tons of freight aboard ; most of it consisted of
antler's goods. At 22 o'clock the pilot on duty,
Lieut. Hampton, left the wheel, which was then
taken by V. Macouley, the other pilot. The night
was not clear, what the pilots call "gray ;" there
was some starlight, but not bright. At half-past
one o'clock—on Thursday morning of course—as
the boat was passing Grand Cut Off, which is sixty
miles below this city, she struck a snag, so that the
end of the snag caught a plank in the hull, twenty
feet from the bow, ripping it off from end to end.
The water, of course, rushed into the hold with
extreme rapidity, and in five minutes from the
time of striking the heat keeled over ,and com-
pletely capsized. The skylight, as the raised
portion of the hurricane deck is called, parted from
the rest, and, with the " texas," or pilot house and
the state rooms connected with it, floated. The
hull completely capsized, and in doing so glided
from the shoal where the accident took place,
and sunk in deep water. So rapidly' did all this
take place, the shock—the rush of water into the
hull below—the rolling overboard of the chimneys
above—the riving. of parting timbers, as t'se hurri-
cane deck separated from the cabin, and this at a
time when nearly every tenant of the ill-fated boat
was in deep sleep, that 'there was no opportunity
for one to help another. Mpg!) who were on the
hurricane deck heard agonising cries, heart-rending
exclamations, and vain calls for help from these
below.a sa
Then they and the rest were all struggling
in the waves that surged Wildly round the spot
clrnlons,
where the capsized boat was swallowed up.
Of
half, ean
the
spassengers, it is estimated that at least
on e- t y -five persons, perished. One white
woman and a coloured chambermaid were saved
five ladies were carried down when the boilerdeck
broke from the hull, and the hurricane deck from
that. Such of the survivors as we have seen caw
nothing of the ladies. They probably, in their
wild fright, made some attempt to dress from the
suggestions of instinctive modesty, and those few
moments were fatal. The captain' clerk, and crew,
with the exception perhaps of some of the deck
hands and the nearo cook, got safely to land. The
survivors speak with admiration of the conduct of
the engineer, Tom Baldwin,
a. t his post until the waters had covered the work•
mg parts oe the engine.
The pilot Hampton
striking.; he
some hasty instructions
wheel, when
the chimneys who stood faithfully
was asleep at the moment of
rushed fromt his TOM, S
shouted out
pilot at the
and I g
ut e boat keeling over
..
slid along the deck until 1
he was caught by the' sleeve
hveewhy the guy of ono of I
the chimneys. So held,
itfts carried down into
the water, and far down, as
fhaellifno the the other
with the sinking
appears to him he
was carried beneath the surfac©
iron, when his struggles tore the sleeve from the
guy, and he reached the surface and contrived to
on by those
get upon the hurricane deck. On this deck others
managed to crawl, or were dragged
already there; others seized floating boxes, bales,
and broken pieces of wreck, and were thus sup.
ported above water. The pilot and some others got
ashore at Mrs. Dr. Kent's landusg. That lady
showed them hospitable kindness. some time after
the accident the W. H. 8., despatch boat, came
down and picked up a number of the survivors and
took them to Helena. Of course we know not who
they were. The Conway, on her trip
up, rescued
a number; she met the skylight hurricane deck
' floating twenty-miles below the spot of the wreck,
and five persons clinging it to ' P
, whom she took off;
from
80, were rescued
the water. From 75 to
sunk 80, it is doubted, beneath the wgtters.