THE MYSTERY OF A FEARFUL EXPLOSION SOLVED.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 2519, 1 September 1888, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE MYSTERY OF A FEARFUL EXPLOSION SOLVED.

The terrible explosion on tho steamer • Sultana, near Memphis, twenty-three years ago, by which nearly 1200 Union soldiers loßt their lives, has always been surrounded with mystery. The survivors of the disaster have recently published statements of the affair, but by far the most sensational story that has come out is. told by William C. Streeter, a painter and decorator, of St Louis. His story fixes the fearful catastrophe as the result of no accident but of a fiendish design, and he locates the boss dynamiter and murderer of the age. " Yes, I know something about tho Sultana disaster," said Mr Streeter in reply to an enquiry. " I can give the cause of the explosion. A torpedo, inclosed in a lump of coal, wua carried aboard the steamer at Memphis and deposited in the coal pile in front of the boilers for the express purpose of uausing her destruction. Tho man who placed the torpedo on the boat is iny authority, for I had the statement from his ')WII lips. He was a notorious Confederate mail carrier and blocktde runner, was captured some five or fix times, and once at least sentenced to death by a military commission in this city. "Hisreal name was Robert Lowden, bu& he was always known in this city by "hU alias, Charlie Dale. He was a painter by trade, and worked in the same shop with , me for William H. Gray some three years after the close of the war. Dale was at that time a young, vigorous daredevil. He possessed bravery of a certain kind, I think, equal to that of any man who ever lived. He was cool and calculating in his disposition. He told me that he had fired no lessthan half-a-dozen steamboats on the Mississippi. I asked him in an off-hand way what he knew of the' Sultana explosion. Then he told me tho story of the torpedo in the coal, and using his own expression, ' It had got too ticklish a job to set a boat afire and get away from her.' Oat of a hundred other of Dale's daring exploits during ■the war one in particular impressed me foroibly as shewing the character of this retriarkable man. , It was accomplished while the Federal fleet was lying between Memphis and Vicksbnrg. Dale had escaped from prison in this city and was on his way south. He was in a quandary for several days as to how he was going to get through the Federal lines. Finally he hit upon a plan, "and it was successful. He got a coffin at Memphis, calked it np with white lead, and launched it on the Mississippi. Then ho laid himself in the ghastly looking boat, and floated down the stream. He passed the Government gun boats at night, and two or three times when the current drifted the coffin up against the hulls of the boats lie reached out hia hands, pushed the craft clear, and landed in the morning safe within the Confederate lines. Dale died in New Orleans during the yellow fever epidemic."