Charles Johnson shared an amazing story about an accident on the Vicksburg riverfront:
At the wharf in front of Vicksburg were always a number of steamboats engaged in receiving and discharging cargoes. About 10 A.M. one day a terrific explosion was heard in the direction of Vicksburg, and looking toward the steamboat landing, an immense column of smoke and debris of all kinds was seen rising in the air; in a moment this spread out and looked precisely like a huge mushroom. It was at once conjectured that a
steamboat had blown up, and as a detail of men had been made from our regiment that morning for duty at the wharf, our surgeon at once called for the ambulance, and in this we drove rapidly to the scene of the accident, and upon arriving there found that a steamboat loaded with ammunition had blown up. Part of the ammunition consisted of concussion shells. A case of these, it was supposed, had fallen through the gangway from the deck of the steamer to the bottom of the hold, when an explosion followed that immediately involved all the ammunition on the boat.
Upon the wharf several dead bodies were seen lying upon the pavement, and all around were pieces of the boat and debris of all kinds that at the moment of explosion
had been thrown in every direction. A number were killed outright, some were seriously wounded, others mortally so, and several on the boat were blown out in the river and afterwards swam ashore, and thus escaped with their lives. One man from our regiment was instantly killed, and, although some eight or ten from the same organization were assisting in handling the ammunition, all but the one happened at the moment to be
on shore, and thus escaped.
