Loudon free press. (Loudon, Tenn.) 1852-1855, 1854-01-31
LOSS OF THE SAN FRANCISO.
STATEMENT OF LIEUTENANT wfNDER u. S. ARMY.
SHIP THREE BELLS,

which could render us comfortable, and every
luxury that could be procured was placed on
board. All these things, together with the gen.
temanly and efficient officers of the ship, and
pleasant company in the cabin, served to render
US happy and contented. But, alas for all hu
man calculations! about 9 o'clock the second
day out, gale sprung up, and continued to in
crease all night. At daylight it was perfectly
frightful. During the night think about II
oclock-our engine gave out, and soon after,
our foremost was carried away, which left US en-.
tirely at the mercy of the wind and waves The
scene in the cabin during this time was truly
distressing. Nearly all had turned out of the
state rooms despair depicted on the countenan-
Ges of all. A few of us who occupied the up
per cabin left it and went below; and well it
was for US, for soon after day. think about s
o'clock--a sea broke over our starboard wheel
house, and with frightful force dashed against
the after cabin, carrying away all Of the cabin,
and about $50 people, among whom were Col.
J. NJ. Washington, Mai. George Taylor and his
wife, Capt z. B. Field, and Lieut.. Smith, two
or three males and females who were unknown
to me, and two citizen passengers, Mr. Rankin,
| our suter, the other names | have not learned,
were swept off, but the return wave brought
them back. | had gone below but few mo-
ments before this terrible crash, and was lying
at the foot Of the steps at the time. never ex-
! perenced such sensation rs when the water
came pouring into the cabin, together with
the debris Of the upper cabin, down upon my
head and breast. / was swept across the cabin
with terrible force, but after three attempts sue
ceeded in regaining my feet. supposed that
the ship had broken in half, and that we were
fast sinking. Followed after some ! saw 60
ing on deck, and on reaching it my blood ran
cold at the sight OF the poor fellows struggling
among the fragments in the sea. The waves
were, TO my eyes, trightful-we could render no
| assistance whatever, and, in fact expected our
| selves that we should go down every minute
| With great difficulty we clung to the deck, the
sea making perfect breach over us, and the
cold so great that an hour longer must have fin
ished us. Close by me was Maj. Wyse, his
young wife and babe. 1t was truly heart-ren
ding sight The poor child must have been
nearly frozen. About this time Mr.. Mellus, the
first officer of the ship, than whom no drawer
seaman lives, came aft with an axe; this not
only surprised me, but greatly raised my hopes
| watched him closely until he approached the
only remaining mast He attempted to cut it
away, but the sea run so high that he was una
BILE to do it. This was the first time | was
aware that the ship was not full Of water. Soon
after this our gallant Commodore Watkins came
along. / asked him what our chances were; he
replied, "Good." I then determined to get into
cabin.
The sea was running very high all the time,
and the ship was strewn on each side with pie
ces of the wreck scattered here and there, with
men and women clinging to the pieces in order
to save themselves. In few moments all was
still, none of them appearing; Not sound was
| heard except the dismal moaning of the wind
On looking around, | saw Lieut.. hurry stand
ing at the mizzenmast. / went aft to him, and
held on there for awhile, until the first mate
came TO cut it away, which he failed in doing
owing to the roughness of the sea. then went
forward to where | was first, and saw Major
WySe, his wife and child, Lieuts. Chandler Van
Worst and DR.. Satterlee. We talked over our
chances for escape, and all came to the conclu-
sion that we could not survive twenty minutes.
At that time two negroes came along with their
life-preservers, and one of the soldiers handed
me one; bat it was go cold that we thought it
would be only prolonging our misery, and think
ing that the vessel would go down every minute,
we did not use them. The sea was making a
breach over us at every roll. About this time
we discovered that there were many persons in
the lower cabin under us, principally ladies'
Two or three of US were determined to 90 down,
and afterwards induced Maj.'Wyse to go down
there with his wife and child. We found that
the ship was not in SO bad a condition as we
thought she was. We found there collected, in
the after part of the cabin, number of the off
GERS ladies, who were in as dry place as they
could find. A portion of the cabin was broken
by the sea that first struck, as | previously sta
ted. We'then covered ourselves up with wet blan-
kets, for we were nearly frozen, not having half
our clothing on at the time. Here we remained
the greater part of the day, supposing the YES
sci would sink some time during the evening.
Capt. Watkins came in and requested that we
would all 90 out to baing the ship, in order to
keep her ahoat. Two officers went out at a
time, and they were relieved by others, each
party bailing two hours each. We kept this up
all that night, water gaining on US, and our
pumps failing to work. This bailing was kept
up four or five nights, until the pumps got to
working again, and the sea went down. We
then gained on the water, and. by great exer-
tons of the engineer, succeeded in clearing the
ship of water for the time. The Captain and
officers of the ship with great exertions sue
ceeded in stopping the worst leaks and repairing
the decks with old pieces of sails, and other
wise patching them up to try and save the ship.
We kept relieves of three or four men at each
end Of the shaft to prevent the water coming in
there, where it came in by the bucketful. About
this time we were cheered with the prospect of
setting the machinery in working order, that the
vessel might get into port temporary steer
ing apparatus was erected, and an attempt
was made to get the ship under way which up
to the time had been at the mercy Of the waves
Alter one or two revolutions of the wheel it was
PRONOUNCED hopeless to attempt anything fur
.her. All that could be done, said the engineer,
was to keep the pumps working. During all
this time the ladies behaved admirably, and no
complaint was made by them. Two or three
days afterwards we saw two sail; one Of them
did not heed us, but the other came alongside
of us and spoke us. The one that spoke us
first was the Napoleon. The Captain said he
was short of provisions, and we sent him off a
quantity. and she went off during the night
| During this time we.wers Tightening the ship
by throwing overheard al heavy articles that
we could get at We made ourselves as COM
Portable as possible, and got something to eat,
and began to get some dry clothes, as we had
! been wet for nearly two weeks. The next took
none of the passengers from us. All this time
we had very rough weather, until the bark kilby
spoke u.s. An officer went on board and made
a contract to take all the passengers off and
take them to the nearest port. Capt. Watkins
STAYED behind to make one effort to save the
ship; he called for volunteers, and in ten min
utes be had the number required to stay by HIM.
As soon as some of the passengers arrived on
board the Kilby we sent some twenty men on
board to tighten his vessel by throwing por-
ton of the CARGO overheard About 2 y. NJ.