THE MYSTERY OF A FEARFUL EXPLOSION SOLVED.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXIV, Issue 8334, 10 April 1889, Page 4

THE MYSTERY OF A FEARFUL EXPLOSION SOLVED.

The terrible explosion on the steamer Sultana, near Memphis, 23 years ago, by which nearly 1200 Union soldiers lost their lives, has always been surrounded •with mystery. TJhe survivors of the disaster Lave 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 tho feaTful catasttope as the result of ho accident, but of a fiendish design, and he locates the boss dynamiter and murderer of the agt!. "Yes, I know something about the Sultana disaster," said Mr Streeter in reply to an inquiry. " I can give the cause of the explosiou. A torpedo, enclosed in a lump of coal, was carried aboard the steamer at Memphis and deposited in the coal pile in front of the boilers for the express purpose of causing her destruction. The .man who placed the torpedo on the boat is my authority, for I had the statement from his own lips. He was a notorious Confederate mail carrier and blockade runner, 1 was captured some five or six times, and once at least sentenced ' to death by a military commission in this city. His real name was Kobert Lowden, but he ■ was always known in this city by Ms 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 joung, vigorous dare' devil. 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 less than 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 the 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." Out of a hundred other of Dale's daring exploits during the war one in particular impressed me forcibly as showing the character of this remarkable man. It was accomplished while the Federal fleet was lying between Memphis and Vicksburg. Dale had escaped from prison in this city and was on his way south. He was in a qnandary for several days as to how he was going ■ to get through the Federal lines. Finally he hit upon a plan, iind it was successful. He got a coffin at Memphis, caulked it up with white lead, and launched it on the Mississippi. Then he laid himself in the ghastly looking boat, and floated down the stream. He passed the Government gunboats at night, and two or three times when the current drifted the coffin up against the hulls of the boats he reached out his hands, pushed the craft clear, and landed in the morning safe within the Confederate lines.- Dale died in New Orleans duriug the yellow fever epidemic."