The S. B. Teche left Natches on the evening of May 4th, 1825, heavily laden with cotton, and carrying about seventy passengers, many of whom came on board at the moment of departure, and were unknown to each other. The course was down the river, and she proceeded about ten miles, when the night became so excessively dark and hazy that her commander, Captain Campbell, deemed it unsafe to proceed further, and concluded to come to anchor. At two o’clock on the following morning, May 5th, the anchor was weighed, and the steam having previously been raised, the boat had just begun to pursue her voyage, when the passengers, many of whom had been sleeping in their berths, were startled by a shock which seemed sufficient to separate every plank and timber in the vessel, accompanied by a report which sounded like the discharge of a whole broadside of the heaviest artillery.
Every light on board was immediately extinguished, either by the escape of steam or the concussion of the air. As the day had not yet dawned, an impenetrable darkness now hung over the scene of the disaster, the extent of which could only be imagined by the aifrighted and horrified crowd collected on the deck; but at that moment of appalling danger, and still more dreadful uncertainty, was heard a cry that the boat was on fire ! Then followed a scene of indescribable confusion; the passengers, in the very insanity of terror, were rushing hither and thither, through the dense and ominous gloom, and many anticipated their doom in their erring endeavor to avoid it.
Mr. Miller, of Kentucky, one of the surviving passengers, who afterwards published in a New Orleans paper a narrative of the events of this fearful night, states that when the alarm of fire was given, he attempted to go towards the bow, from whence the cry proceeded, but before he had advanced ten paces, he was precipitated down the hatchway, (the hatches had been blown off by the explosion,) and after falling, fortunately on his feet, to the bottom of the hold, he found himself knee-deep in scalding water, which had been discharged from the fractured boiler. He would soon have perished in the suffocating vapor which filled the place, had not his cries for assistance been heard by some humane person on deck, who threw him the end of a rope, and thus enabled him to escape from his agonizing and perilous situation.
By this time the flames began to ascend, illuminating the deck with a lurid glare which enabled the passengers to discern the means of escape which offered, though these means were made less available by the terror and confusion which prevailed. The yawl made several trips to the nearest shore, carrying off a load of passengers at each trip; but as the flames began to extend rapidly over the deck, it was evident that all the people on board could not be saved in this way. In these circumstances, the Captain gave orders that bales of cotton should be thrown overboard, and on these many passengers were kept afloat until the boats finally took them off.
But the last incident of this tragic narrative is one of the most distressing. About three o’clock, A. M., the steamboat Washington, while passing up the river, was hailed by the survivors on board of the burning vessel. The Washington promptly sent a boat to their assistance, and waited to receive them. All who remained on the Teche, (about twelve in number,) embarked in the Washington’s boat; and now, assuring themselves of safety, they had reached the side of the steamer, when, by some unlucky accident, the small boat was upset, and every person on board, man, woman, and child, was drowned. It would seem that their inexorable fate had doomed them to destruction.
The number of lives lost by this accident could never be ascertained. Several persons were instantly killed by the explosion, and others were so badly injured, by scalding, or otherwise, that they died soon afterwards. It is thought that not less than twenty or thirty were drowned.