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Veteran Affairs

2009-11-01 15:55:00

Last surviving Civil War veteran in Kansas

Question (mine to you): Several months ago I asked the readers to come up with the last surviving Civil War veteran in the state of Kansas. We wanted to know the date that the last surviving veteran died, his place of burial and the Military unit he served in. We didn’t want to know whether the veteran was either Union or Confederate.

Answer (yours to mine): I received an email from Gail F. Keen, who stated she was a very young 60 year old. Her dad is Robert Warner and had just turned 92 and is one of the only living sons of civil war veterans. Now this is not deceased civil war veterans. But the name of our organization is the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War and this is an actual Son of a Civil War Veteran. His father was William Carter Warner, 9th Indiana Cavalry, Co B. William Carter Warner died in 1932 when Robert Warner was father was 15 years old. William Carter Warner is buried in the Wellington Cemetery in Sumner Co. He was one of the Veterans who came to Kansas for “free land.” He was also one of the survivors of the Sultana Disaster. He was a POW in Cahaba (An Old Cotton Warehouse) Prison in Alabama at the end of the War and was among those marched to Vicksburg, MS to board steamships going to Cairo, Ill, where they were to receive their discharge. They never made it. The ship, The Sultana, exploded in the vicinity of Memphis, TN on April 27th, 1865 making the largest maritime disaster in the history of the US, even surpassing the death toll on the Titanic. William Carter Warner was one fortunate survivors. Over two thirds of the of the POW’s were killed. “Captain J.C. Mason of St. Louis was the Captain. The Sultana left New Orleans on April 21, 1865 75 to 100 cabin passengers, deck passengers, and numerous heads of livestock bound for market in St. Louis. At Vicksburg. MI the steamship stopped for a series of hasty repairs to the boilers and to take on more passengers. Rather than have a bad boiler replaced, a small patch repair was made to reinforce a leaking area. A section of bulged boiler plate was removed, and a patch of less thickness than the parent plate was riveted in its place.[2] This repair only took about a day, whereas to replace the boiler completely would have taken about three days. Captain Mason was itching to be on his way and had the patch job done because it was faster. During the Sultana’s time in port, men tried to muscle, bribe, and threaten their way on board, until the ship was bursting at the seams with soldiers. More than two thousand men crowded aboard. Most of the new passengers were Union soldiers, chiefly from Ohio and just released from POW prison camps in the South. The US government had contracted with the Sultana to transport these former POW’s back to their homes. With a legal capacity of only 376, the Sultana was severely overcrowded. Many of Sultana’s passengers had been weakened by their incarceration and associated illnesses. Passengers were packed into every available berth, and the overflow was so severe that the decks were completely packed. The cause of the explosion was a leaky and poorly repaired steam boiler. At Memphis at 2:00 A.M., there was a terrific explosion that sent some of the passengers on deck into the water while destroying a good portion of the ship. Hot coals scattered by the explosion soon turned the remaining superstructure into an inferno, the glare of which could be seen in Memphis. About 500 survivors, many with horrible burns, were transported to hospitals in Memphis. Up to 300 of them died later from burns or exposure. Newspaper accounts indicate that the people of Memphis had sympathy for the victims despite the fact that they had recently been enemies. The Chicago Opera Troupe staged a benefit, the crew of the Essex raised $1,000, and the mayor took in three survivors.” No exact death toll is known. Estimates range from 1,300 to 1,900. The official count was 1,547. Modern historians tend to concur on a figure of with “up to 1,800”. Final estimates of survivors were between 700-800. Many of the dead were interred at the National Cemetery in Memphis. The official cause of the Sultana disaster was determined to be mismanagement of water levels in the boiler, exacerbated by “careening.” The Sultana was severely overcrowded and top heavy. As the steamship made its way north following the twists and turns of the river, the Sultana listed severely to one side then the other. The Sultana’s four boilers were interconnected and mounted side-by-side, so that if the ship tipped sideways, water would tend to run out of the highest boiler. With the fires still going against the empty boiler, this created hot spots. When the ship tipped the other way, water rushing back into the empty boiler would hit the hot spots and flash instantly to steam, creating a sudden surge in pressure. This effect of careening could have been minimized by maintaining high water levels in the boilers. The official inquiry found that Sultana‘s boilers exploded due to the combined effects of careening, low water level, and a faulty repair to a leaky boiler made a few days earlier. To be continued next month...