Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 38, Number 79, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 June 1906 — Survived Awful Disaster. [ARTICLE]

Survived Awful Disaster.

\V. N. Goodrich of Menominee, Mich., is one of the few survivors of the great disaster of April 27, 1860, when more than 1,490 exchanged prisoners returning to the North on board the stenmer Sultana were killed by the explosion of the vessel's boilers in the Mississippi river near Memphis, Tenn. A bomb, it is supposed, had been placed in the coal. When the explosion came, Goodrich was thrown into the river. He clung to a piece of wreckage and float ed for some miles, finally drifting into an eddy which carried him beneath an overhanging tree. Seizing the drooping branches he was enabled to draw himself to safety. Ahhough.it' is nearly half a century since the explosion took place, Goodrich has never been able to forget the awful horror of those fatal moments.