FEARFUL LOSS OF LIFE ON BOARD AN AMERICAN TRANSPORT.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 6, Issue 305, 11 September 1865, Page 3

FEARFUL LOSS OF LIFE ON BOARD AN AMERICAN TRANSPORT.

On’ the 27th April the steamer Sultana left Mems phis on her upward voyage, with 2,200 passengere on board, chiefly Federal prisoners. She had gon , , some ten miles when one of her boilers erplodedo the fragments flying into the packed crowds lik - shells, and the scalding steam killing them in hun e drcds. Many of the survivors jumped into th river and drowned, while the Are, which brok e out immediately on the explosion, scorched th° remainder—not more than 600 escaping with thei r lives. In a few minutes 1,600 had been scorched' burnt, scalded, or drowned—the loss of life being greater than that incurred ia most European battles. LOSS OF THE SCHOONER LEOPOLD. Mr Amos Margie e, second mate and solo survive of the schooner Leopold, which left Montreal on the 22nd November, 1864, for St. John’s, reached Liverpool recently by the Moravian, from New York, and told a horrible story of the loss of the schooner. On the 9th December, she met with bad weather, and on the neit day she was washed upon some breakers. Marnier and another named Mercer, were able to reach the shore at Well Cover, near the Bay of Islands; a third, Willett was lying on the wreck, unable to move, with his back and thighs broken ; and the captain and all ■ the rest of the crew were drowned or killed by the 'falling of the rigging, struck down by the violence of the storm. After eight weeks of endurance, Willett was frozen to death on the deck of the wreck. They had been quite unable to move him, but had fed him from time to time. On the 28ih January Mercer died. His leg from this time was frozen fast. On the 21st March Mareior was rescued by the schooner Lily Dale. On cutting off his stockings, four of the toes of his right foot dropped ofi‘ in consequence of the frost. —Otago Daily Times, August 22.,