STEAMBOAT DISASTER.

SINKING OF THE STEAMER MERCURY.

LOSS OF TWENTY-FIVE LIVES AND A VALUABLE CARGO.
Cincinnati, Sunday, March 17.
The Commercial publishes the particulars of the sinking of the steamer
Mercury, at Arkansas Cutoff, on the 13th inst. The boat struck a snag and sank to the hurricane deck. Twenty-five passengers were lost. The boat was valued at $20,000, and insured for $15,000. She had a cargo of 1,400 bales of cotton, besides a large assorted freight for Cairo and the Ohio River.

St. Louis, Monday, March 18.
The Republican's Cairo special dispatch says the crew and passengers rescued from the steamer Mercury, recently sunk in the Arkansas River, have arrived at that point. Many of the passengers are badly frozen from standing in the water, the only shallow place they could occupy, being four feet deep. Capt. DICKINSON reports that the crew of the steamer George D. Palmer, plundered the wreck of the Mercury, and after those saved from the wreck had been transferred to the Palmer, their luggage was rifled and even the underclothes of the ladies and the boots and shirts of men were stolen. Capt. DICKINSON charges the carpenter of the Palmer with being at the head of the robbers, and implicates her Captain and other officers in the transaction.
Seven men who floated down the stream on cotton blaes, lodged against some drift, and while there four of them were killed by a tree which was blown down by a storm.
Two hundred and twenty-five mules were drowned by the sinking of the Mercury.

The New York Times New York 1867-03-19
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Researched and Transcribed by Stu Beitler. Thank you, Stu!