Stars of the Sultana: Her ancestor, Pvt. Daniel Garber of the 102nd Ohio, jumped into the Mississippi River in desperation, though he 'could swim but very little'

Daniel Garber in 1862, with wife Matilda and family in 1890. Carol Lundquist's grandfather David stands at far right

Submitted by Carol Lundquist

Ahead of the Nov. 14 grand opening of the new Sultana Disaster Museum in Marion, Ark., the Civil War Picket asked experts and descendants for submissions about the people involved in the story – the soldiers, the survivors, the heroes and the scoundrels. The overloaded steamboat exploded and caught fire in the Mississippi River on April 27, 1865. About 1,200 people perished, many of them released Federal POWs heading home at the end of the war. Carol Lundquist (left) of Minneapolis submitted the following about her paternal great-grandfather, Pvt. Daniel Garber (left) of the 102^nd Ohio Volunteer Infantry. Lundquist and her daughter Kirsten will be in Marion for the museum events. (Part 1 of the series is here, and Part 2 is here)

Daniel’s Civil War history is not especially notable in itself. He entered service as a private, and left as a private.  He was a wagoner or a teamster, and I haven’t found that Company E saw a lot of front-line action.

I think of Daniel’s experience as emblematic of the many thousands of ordinary men who served and survived the horrors of the war, including the Sultana disaster, came home and somehow resumed their lives.  

Daniel Garber (born in Pennsylvania) was a shoemaker and farmer, from Butler, Ohio.  He enlisted in the 102^nd OVI, Company E, in August 1862 at age 34, 10 years older than the average age of enlistees. He left behind his wife Matilda and seven children ranging in ages 12 years down to a 6 month old baby. Daniel served for the duration of the war.

He was captured near Athens, Alabama, by Forrest’s cavalry; the 102^nd was guarding the railroad. He survived being imprisoned at Cahaba, and survived the Sultana disaster

Daniel came back after the war, resumed shoemaking and farming, and fathered several more children, including my grandfather, David Scott Garber, in 1872.  

What I find extraordinary in Daniel’s story is simply that of survival. His account of the Sultana disaster is in the Chester Berry book (left). Daniel was on the pilot deck, and waited to jump into the water so as not to collide with all the men already in the water. I grew up hearing of how Daniel had to push men off his shutter or piece of wood so as to save himself.

Daniel says himself that he “could swim but very little.” He floated down the cold, dark, flooded Mississippi River, past the lights of Memphis for four more miles before he was picked up by the boat Pocahontas, 11 miles from the site of the explosion. 

Daniel surely knew that many men who were on the Sultana in the same situation were never rescued and their bodies lost to the river forever.  

Daniel (below) was an invalid for a number of years before his death in 1906. 

Of the 13 men from Company E who were on the Sultana, only three survived: William Yeisley, William Lockhart, and Daniel.  William Lockhart was a close friend of Daniel’s and a pallbearer at his funeral. Yeisley married into the Garber family after the war; he married Nancy Garber, who was a niece of Daniel’s.

In 1996, I met William Lockhart’s daughter-in-law at the Mansfield, Ohio Civil War show, thanks to Gene Salecker. She was quite elderly at the time and died within the next year or two.

It was and still is quite an emotional encounter to meet someone with such close ties to Daniel and the Civil War, through William, although she never knew Daniel.

It only emphasized for me how near we are to the Civil War in time and its lasting effects.