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In all, the Marine had saved 100 people, but 478
passengers and crewmen still remained on board the Central America. After it
became apparent that the ship must surrender to the elements, "the scene among
the passengers was one of the most indescribable confusion and alarm, " later
recalled William Chase, on of those marooned.
In the anxiety and
terror of the moment, Chase related that "the love of gold was forgotten." Some
of the men unbuckled their gold stuffed belts and flung their hard earned
treasure upon the deck to lighten their weight. Chase claimed that he could
have easily have picked up thousands of dollars, if he thought he had the
chance of reaching safety with his treasure. Shortly before eight o'clock, the
Central America with its decks now awash, was rapidly filling with water and
sinking lower into the sea. In a dinner conversation earlier in the voyage
Captain Herndon had told the Eastons that if his ship were ever to go down, he
would go with it. Now, having done everything he could to save the women and
children, and wondering if he could have done anything different to avoid the
imminent tragedy, Captain Herndon retired to his quarters. Stoic and proud, he
returned to the wheelhouse wearing his full-dress uniform.
According
to his friend and fellow captain Thomas Badger, "Captain Herndon took position
on the wheel-house with his second officer and fired rockets downward, the
usual signal… that we were sinking rapidly. This was a fearful moment, and
must have been also to the ladies on board the Marine." Survivors recalled that
the vessel lurched three times, with passengers jumping off at each lurch.
Those who jumped off at the first and second lurches swam off, but most
remained on deck until the vessel went down a minute or two later. "A rocket
shot out obliquely," remembered Addie Easton, who was watching from the marine.
" The lights disappeared beneath the waves, and all the world grew dark for
me." She had no way of knowing it, but Ansel was standing next to Captain
Herndon when the rockets shot into the sky.
The ship plunged at a
45-degree angle, related another account, and then disappeared. As it slipped
down, the enormous suction generated by the sinking vessel pulled the men on
board far below the surface. Those who managed to fight their way back above
water were greeted by a horrifying scene: "Men, some holding planks, and others
without anything, were tossed about through the sea for a great space, and
appeared to me like so many corks," recalled Barney Lee.
Through the
night the survivors were battered about in the darkness, sometimes in groups,
sometimes alone. Bodies floated in the water. "I struck against many of them,"
related one survivor, John C. Taylor. "They were all provided with
life-preservers, yet dead, and with their heads down in the water. It was a
horrible sight."
Shortly after midnight on the morning of September
13, the storm finally began to abate and the sea calmed. The Norwegian bark
Ellen neared the area where the Central America had gone down. Unaware of the
tragedy, its captain, Anders Johnsen, had just changed course when a small bird
flew across the ship once or twice, and then darted into his face.
He
took no notice at first, but when the bird went through the same maneuver twice
more, the captain decided it must be an omen. "Upon this I was induced to
re-alter my course into the original one, which I had been steering, and in a
short time I heard voices, and on trying to discover where they proceed from,
discovered that I was in the midst of people who had been shipwrecked." At
about one o'clock in the morning, five hours after the Central America sank,
captain Johnsen's crew began pulling men from the ocean. By nine o'clock they
had saved 50. The crew of the Ellen continued to search for survivors until noon
that day, then set sail for Norfolk, Virginia. Coincidentally, the Marine was
also en route to Norfolk with its survivors.
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