People often ask me not some question about history but where do the ideas for my columns come from. The ice storm of this past week brought to mind two seemly different thoughts. February had been Black History Month and whenever there is a warm wet spell followed by an ice storm I can not help but think of the ill-fated Tombigbee steamboat the Eliza Battle.
The pre-Civil War roles of African Americans in the south is usually only viewed as the pain and struggles of slavery. There is, however, a lot more to that story that seldom gets told. During the 83 years from the American Revolution to Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, blacks both slave and free were often unsung heroes of the south. Of more notable of those stories, one occurred 235 years ago today and the other 157 years ago last Sunday. One was a story of bravery during the American Revolution and the other a poignant story of heroism during a great calamity.
During the American Revolution present day Mobile, Alabama, was in British hands and protected by Fort Charlotte. It was a brick fort previously constructed by the French but taken over by the British at the close of the French and Indian War. In 1779 war erupted between Spain and Great Britain. Though there was no formal alliance between Spain and the American colonies, the Spanish sent word to George Washington of their plan to invade British West Florida and capture the British forts at Pensacola and Mobile. Washington was hopeful that the Spanish attack would relieve the British pressure on Georgia and the Carolinas. Copies of the American Declaration of Independence were even smuggled into Mobile.
In the spring of 1780, Spanish Governor Galvez of Louisiana took British held Baton Rouge and Natchez and then sailed for Mobile with a force of Spanish regulars, militia and several companies of free blacks. He then landed near Mobile where he prepared to attack British Fort Charlotte. Lorenzo Montero, a free black man, commanded a cannon in a Spanish artillery battery. When the actual assault began on March 8, 1780, the first man wounded among the Spanish forces was an unnamed free black man. Fort Charlotte surrendered on March 14, 1780. The Spanish governor of West Florida later wrote: “The Colored People have served during the late war with great courage and usefulness.”
A warm wet day followed by a sudden rapid drop in temperature and then an ice storm always brings to mind the burning of the steamboat the Eliza Battle on a flooded, freezing Tombigbee River on March 1, 1858. The Eliza Battle left Columbus on a warm wet February 28, 1858, bound for Mobile with 55 passengers and a crew of about 45. As she sailed south down the river the temperature was said to have dropped 40 degrees in only two hours. The river was flooded and a north wind was an icy gale when around 1 a.m. on March 1 the stern of the boat was discovered to be on fire.
Newspaper accounts published within a few days of the disaster describe the horror of that night. After local survivors and the bodies of many of the lost returned to Gainesville, Alabama, the Gainesville Independent told the story of how after the fire was discovered at the stern of the boat, “husbands seize their trembling wives, and mothers their helpless children. With piteous cries for succor, they rush to the fore part of the vessel, and clinging wildly to bales of cotton, trunks, planks, or anything which comes to hand, they cast themselves upon the mercy of the dark swift stream…They had escaped the burning flames, but the cold fetters which the implacable Ice King threw around their hearts could not be broken.”
Other newspaper accounts told of the heroes. Jack Jackson, first mate, Benjamin Mitchell, a passenger, and Daniel Hartly, a cub pilot, floated down river on cotton bales to get help. Assistant pilot Thomas Bradley paddled a lady to shore on a cotton bale. Frank Stone, the 19-year-old second clerk, swam to shore with a child, went back to save a lady and made a third trip to try and save another lady but she froze to death in his arms as he was swimming to shore with her. Another child was saved by Captain S.G. Stone, who took off his coat, dipped it in the river and then threw it over a burning cotton bale to make it steaming hot so that a freezing child could be wrapped in it. All of these heroes survived.
One hero apparently not only did not survive but has fallen through the cracks of history and his name is not even known. Only a few accounts tell of an unnamed deckhand who was a slave. He had obtained a plank which would serve as a raft on which to escape the burning boat. Before floating away to safety he saw a lady standing helpless on the burning deck. He took her, placed her on the plank and pushed her away from the doomed boat giving up his place and thereby his life. His name was never recorded unless in the list of the lost and his sacrificial act was soon forgotten. Just another unsung hero.
Rufus Ward is a local historian. Email your questions about local history to him at [email protected].
Rufus Ward is a Columbus native a local historian. E-mail your questions about local history to Rufus at [email protected].
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