Philip Horn
I was born in the city of Wooster, Wayne county, Ohio, October 24, 1844, and pursue the vocation of a confectioner and baker. I enlisted as a private in Company I of the 102nd Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry, at Wooster, Ohio, August 7,1862. Was captured at Athens, Ala., September 24, 1864. was held as prisoner at Cahaba, Ala., for seven months; was then released and sent to Vicksburg, Miss., where I got on board the steamer "Sultana," that had sailed from New Orleans, and upon which the eye of an evil planet was resting. At Vicksburg, Miss., one of the boilers underwent a process of repairing. We steamed up the river,the vessel running smoothly and all going “merry as a marriage bell." We reached Memphis on the evening of the 26th of April, 1865, where a cargo of sugar was unloaded. Departing thence at about midnight we pressed up the river and took on coal. While this was going on I fell asleep. After that I knew but little and seemed to live a thousand years in a minute. My first conception or self-identification was that I was lost in the air, and true it was— I was whirled in the air.
When the explosion took place I was lying on the left side of the boat on the cabin guard at the foot of the stairs that goes up to the hurricane deck, I was either blown through the stairway or thrust out sidewise into the river, but my first consciousness was that of being in the air. When I struck the water I went down twice, when, upon rising the second time, I encountered a piece of the wreck which I seized. I think it was a part of the cabin guard which was about twenty feet in length by six to eight feet in width. Seven other comrades clung to the wreck upon which we floated down the river, passing the city of Memphis. On the way down in this life and death struggle, two of the men, through sheer exhaustion, relinquished their hold, and sinking back into the arms of the cruel river, were drowned. I do not know their names; they were strangers to me.
It was now just before daybreak and the darkness was most terrible, but nevertheless we sounded the loudest possible alarm, which was heard by men in a gunboat lying near, and we were picked up by a skiff with three men in it. There were six of us in the boat and one of them, my bunkmate, Joseph McKelvy, of my company, was scalded from head to foot in the explosion, I was the first one to get into the boat. McKelvy recognized me and said: "For God's sake, help me in." I said: "Is that you?" "It is," he replied. I asked: "Are you hurt?" He answered: "Yes, scalded from head to foot." I took him by the arm and one of the boatmen took hold of him also, and we helped him into the skiff. The boatman removed his coat and put it around McKelvy to prevent him from taking cold. We then started up the river toward Memphis and when crossing the river in the direction of the Tennessee side (we were then on the Arkansas side), we were fired upon by some negro guards (Union men) who thought that we were Confederates and who were guarding the river some distance below Fort Pickens.
We then headed up stream and met a steamer in anxious search of the victims of the terrible disaster. One of the skiffmen with a lantern signalled the steamer and it came to a halt and we were taken on board. McKelvy was hurt the worst and received the most kind and tender attention. A bed was made on the lower deck for him, his clothing removed and his body sprinkled with flour, if possible to mitigate his sufferings.
The dense darkness still prevailed and the steamer continued its journey down the deep broad current on the alert for victims till after daylight, when it returned to Memphis not having found any more of the unfortunates. Shortly after we were taken on the steamer a comrade (stranger to me) died, but prior to to his death they placed him on a barrel and for a time rolled him quite vigorously, thinking that he was gorged with water. When we arrived at Memphis the ladies of the Sanitary Commission were the first to come to us with dry clothing, giving each of us a flannel shirt and a pair of drawers. We changed our clothing and then were driven in cabs to the hospital. The unfortunate McKelvy was taken to a different hospital, in some part of the city, where he died. We remained in Memphis two or three days and those who were able and well enough were transported to Cairo, Ill., and thence to Columbus, Ohio, where I was discharged from the service May 20, 1865.
At the time of the explosion McKelvy and I were lying together asleep, and it is a matter of wonder to me how I escaped when he was so seriously injured. When the explosion took place my first impression was that I was experiencing another railroad disaster, as I had just passed through an ordeal of that kind on the way to Athens, but when I collided with the water this impression was soon corrected. How far or how high I was blown into the air I do not know, but I remember that my feet first struck the water and with the exception of being slightly hurt on my left side I suffered but little from the shock. It was not a laughable matter then, but it is now, when during the night we were clinging with a death grip to the wreck, a mule—another floating waif of this disaster—swam along and dumped us all into the river, compelling us all to exert our strength to regain our hold on the wreck. The current at times would compel the men to relax their grip and with the greatest difficulty they would recover it again. It is my opinion that the explosion was caused by a torpedo having been placed in the coal by the Confederates at the last coaling station. One of the boilers of the Sultana had just been repaired at Vicksburg. Many of the men who lost their lives were soldiers who had been prisoners for many months, some even for twenty months. [Although many victims of the disaster believed that the Sultana was destroyed in an act of sabotage, historians agree that these claims are false.]