Steamboat: SUNSHINE
Built: 1860
Tonnage: 354
Clemens' Service: 6 December 1860 - 8 January 1861
Pilot: Capt. George W. Willard in 1860; Absalom Grimes in 1861
Captain: Henry G. Carson
Fate: burned 13 July 1864 in St. Louis by Confederates
For a full account of Clemens' service on the SUNSHINE, see Michael H. Marleau's
"Cooling Our Bottom on the Sand Bars: A Chronicle of a Low Water Trip"
Following is an abstract of Marleau's article:
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Looking out from the St. Louis levee on the morning of December 6, 1860 the river with its level slowly falling was "well spotted and streaked with floating ice." When the steamer Sunshine departed from the levee that afternoon her officers were well aware of the condition of the river down to Cairo. There were reports of four and half feet in the channel with a number of boats aground between St. Louis and Cairo.
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On Friday morning, December 7, the Sunshine, Hillman and the Taylor, were observed at the cliffs "all tied to the bank."
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The crew of the Sunshine "spent the night assisting the Hillman." After having "lightened the C. E. Hillman of 1500 sacks of corn" the Sunshine then found herself grounded and also in need of assistance.
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The grounded Sunshine was then lightened off by the Blue Wing which had to work in close to the stranded vessel evidently by being skillfully steered around a sand bar newly revealed by the receding river. After lightening her load and working herself free, the Sunshine was reloaded by the already exhausted crews.
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It was reported that ice still floated in the river but it was soft and offered "but little resistance to boats" while the water was "4 ½ feet scant in the channel out to Cairo." In company with the Hillman, the Sunshine then streamed down river.
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The 1500 sacks of corn the Sunshine had lighted from the Hillman were unloaded at Brickley’s Landing near Plateau Rock. At the landing the Sunshine and our correspondent "parted company with the Hillman" as the deck hands of the latter vessel put out an additional "1704 sacks of corn, to enable her to get out of the river." With the approach of dusk the pilot of the Sunshine rounded to and "lay all night at Fort Charters".
Saturday morning, December 8, found little ice in the river.
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Later that day as the crew of the Sunshine was "taking on flour at Chester, the D. G. Taylor passed down." When the Sunshine "overhauled her at Sheep island" the Taylor was "hard and fast aground," they had to "lay all night waiting for her to get out of the way."
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Sunday morning, December 9, the Sunshine was seen from the steamer Augustus McDowell near Underhill’s having gotten past the Taylor and resumed her impeded voyage.
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By afternoon the Sunshine met the steamer Platte Valley passing up and might have learned that below there was three and a half feet of water at a series of sand bars known as Crawford’s and a little below that, the Devils Tea Table.
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For nearly two days the Sunshine had laid at "Crawford’s and the Tea Table," in which our correspondent "SAM" simply described the situation as "cooling our bottom on the sand bars."
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When the Sunshine finally got over the first bar there were still others to cross, as well as other difficulties to contend with. At "some point near Crawford’s" the Sunshine and the New Sam Gaty were near each other in the stream between sand bars, when the Sunshine "swung around against the New Sam Gaty." Both vessels were only slightly damaged "although the crash was loud enough for one to suppose that both boats were essentially done for." This incident might have occurred preparatory to kedging over the bar that is securing the boats anchor to the river bottom beyond the bar and hauling in the cable with her steam capstan and dragging herself over aided by the power of the churning paddle wheels. By swinging on her cable before butting against the bar, the Sunshine could have swung around on the New Sam Gaty in the narrow channel. Perhaps the cable broke and after the resulting collision the crew would have been "hunting her anchor." Some steamboat captains and pilots did not like to be crowded so the collision could have been a deliberate act. Most likely when trying to work her way over, the Sunshine -- with all her steam on -- came driving down upon the bar, when near she "smelt the bar," became hesitant and then started to "sheer" away. However, upon meeting the bar "strikes and swings" around into the other boat. In the vernacular of the river, steamboats were always expressed as living things.
After getting over the sand bars at Crawford’s the Sunshine still had to negotiate those of the Tea Table. Captain Carson had the deck crew again lighten the Sunshine of her cargo so they could begin the work of "double tripping it" over the bars. That is putting out enough livestock and freight on shore to make the vessels’ draft shallow enough in the water to allow it to work its way over the bars, then unloading the remainder of the cargo and returning back over the bars to retrieve the balance, thus "double tripping." "When we finally concluded to leave," our correspondent wrote, other "boats were doing their best to follow our example."
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On December 11 the "Arizona bound up" noted the Sunshine "at the foot of Tea Table taking on freight." Some of the other boats had already worked their way over the Tea Table, and the day before the steamers R. M. Ryland and Lehigh had made it as far as Cape Girardeau. When finally loaded with all her freight the Sunshine departed the Tea Table and went on her way rejoicing.
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Our correspondent "SAM" and the Sunshine laid "all night at Cape LaCruz".
Under way again on Wednesday morning, December 12, the Sunshine came upon the steamer Champion "at the head of Powers Island." Then "in company with her," as "SAM" recounted, "we crossed the bar, finding 5 feet scant." Proceeding on, the Sunshine came to the "foot of Goose Island" were she "again overhauled the Lebanon aground." While the Sunshine and the Champion were sounding "above Widow Brookes’ Point" near the head of Dog Tooth Island they met "the Minnehaha and Prairie Rose" bound for St. Louis.
The steamer Minnehaha reported the "Polar Star aground at the head of Dog Tooth," that place being one of the shallowest on the river. Our correspondent "SAM" on the Sunshine noted the "South Wester laying at the bank putting out her freight so as to get over the bar" at Dog Tooth. The pilot of the Sunshine was able to negotiate the sand bars of Dog Tooth and soon left the Champion and South Wester to make their own way. In the vicinity of Two Sisters Island she "met the E. W. Ryland on her return from Columbus below." Nearly out of the river now the Sunshine was met by the Anglo Saxon coming up at Able’s Tow Head, with the New Sam Gaty not far behind both "on their way to Tea Table to pick up the freight they left behind."
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After nearly a six-day trip the Sunshine arrived at Cairo at 3 o’clock in the afternoon on December12, 1860, where "SAM" found the steamers "J. C. Swon, Ed. Walsh, Choctaw, City of Memphis, and Emerald, all bound for New Orleans." That same afternoon the steamer Henry Von Phul arrived at Cairo, "four days and twenty-three hours from New Orleans" an indication that the lower Mississippi was in a fair condition for navigation.
The Alonzo Child was seen at Cairo, having arrived from New Orleans a day before the Sunshine got out of the river. Captain O’Neal of the Alonzo Child traveled by train to St. Louis, in order "to find a light steamboat to go down to Cairo, and bring up the Child’s freight, . . . but did not succeed." Her freight was then stored at Cairo. O’Neal had intended to load for a return trip to New Orleans, but instead the Alonzo Child was laid up for nearly a month at Cairo. The John Walsh like the other big New Orleans packets could never make the Cairo to St. Louis trip with the river in its present condition. Arrangements were made for the John Walsh to reship her freight on the Sunshine for the trip to St. Louis. The Sunshine was to leave for St. Louis the next morning, where they hoped to "arrive as soon as possible, if not sooner--sand bars, etc., notwithstanding." It was reported in St. Louis that there "was no boat aground in this river when the last steamers passed up, excepting the Lebanon at Goose Island".
Returning up river to St. Louis was uneventful. The Sunshine took a lot less freight and a lot less time as the pilots now knew where the channel and the sand bars were located, her officers reported "four feet scant at Crawford’s," and arrived at St. Louis on the evening of December 15. After unloading the cargo of the John Walsh at the St. Louis levee the Sunshine was made ready for another trip down river. It apparently had been arranged for the Sunshine to take a load of freight down to Cairo for the John Walsh, but a day or so later the captain of the Walsh had concluded "to give up her trip . . . and has laid up." The question concerning the owner and captain of the Sunshine now was "where to steer" the boat. A few days later the steamer John Walsh at Cairo was reported as preparing to go to New Orleans, so "360 tons of freight and some passengers" were loaded aboard the Sunshine to be taken down river to that vessel. While loading for the trip the weather turned intensely cold, the ice coming down the river described as "a perfect rush" and it began to snow heavily. The outlook for commerce on the river to safely continue was such that insurance underwriters "refused to insure freight on boats leaving port." River traffic from St. Louis was "consequently suspended, until a change in the weather".
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However, the Sunshine left for Cairo on December 22, in a river that was falling and full of floating ice. Early the next day the Sunshine was observed at Salma. Coming up on St. Genevieve the Sunshine became hard aground in the bend. Unable to get off and the river falling she soon was "almost out of the water, with the shore on one side and the ice gorged on the other side." Seeking help, some officers "left the boat and reached St. Louis by a circuitous land route" arriving the day after Christmas. That same day the New Sam Gaty coming up from Cairo, came upon the Sunshine and picked up "her passengers and a portion of her crew" and brought them to St. Louis arriving on December 28. If our intrepid pilot Sam Clemens had been on the Sunshine he arrived back in St. Louis by the land route, where he wrote his petition, dated December 26, for candidacy in the Polar Star Lodge of Masons.
The weather was getting worse. Rain, sleet and snow continued falling with ice running in the river. Capt. Willard, the owner of the Sunshine "engaged the steamer Col. Morgan to go down and lighten the Sunshine off the bar" but the weather did not improve and that vessel never left St. Louis. After the first of the year 1861, Capt. Willard and a crew went down in a yawl to St. Genevieve bend to try and refloat the boat. It was a very cold journey in that open yawl out among the floating ice of the river. When the crew reached the Sunshine they found her still "hard aground and icebound." Putting the freight out on the bank and lighting the fires in her boilers and with some intense effort the crew seceded in getting the Sunshine afloat. A day or so after refloating the boat the "gorge of ice in the Mississippi above Cairo had broken up" and the river was rising. The Sunshine without much trouble could now get out to Cairo with her cargo. In a few days she was seen with her cargo on board below Cape Girardeau safely past Crawford's and the Tea Table.
With the gorge of ice broken up steamboat traffic between St. Louis and Cairo once again began to move. Insurance underwriters in St. Louis required boats "not to load to over four feet" of draft. Vessels laid up at Cairo were loaded with freight consigned to St. Louis from other boats unable or unwilling to make the trip in still relatively low water.
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The St. Louis Evening News stated that the "Crew of the Alonzo Child has left for Cairo." Because of the low water the river had undergone many changes and the Republican commented that "pilots will be under the necessity of learning a portion of the river over again".
The Sunshine arrived at Cairo with her cargo early on January 8, 1861. That same day the Alonzo Child departed Cairo for St. Louis, as Captain O’Neal, who also held a license, had apparently engaged a pilot who knew the changes in the river. Going up river the Alonzo Child came upon and ran in "good deal of ice floating in the river," all the way to St. Louis. When the Alonzo Child arrived in St. Louis "the pilots" reported "finding about 4 1/2 feet on the more formidable of the bars below. The Child was drawing four feet three inches." Some years later when the pilot that O’Neal had employed reminisced to a pilot friend about that trip with the captain, he recounted, you "ought to have seen him & me bring the . . . Alonzo . . . Child . . . up the river, through the ice, drawing all the water." This up river trip was the only journey under those conditions the Alonzo Child made from Cairo to St. Louis that winter arriving on January 11, 1861 and Sam Clemens was her pilot.