Image ID: 2ARE

Miller, Photographic History of the Civil War, Vol. 6, p193: SAVED FROM AN UNTIMELY END—THE SCIOTA. This scene on the vessel’s deck was photographed shortly after she had been raised after being sunk by a torpedo in Mobile Bay. Two days after the Federal flag was raised over the courthouse in Mobile, the “Sciota,” while hurrying across the bay, ran into one of these hidden engines of destruction. A terrific explosion followed and the “Sciota” sank immediately in twelve feet of water. Four of her men were killed and six wounded and the vessel was badly damaged. This was on April 14, 1865. The navy never gives up one of its vessels as a total loss till everything has been done to prove that to be the case; by July 7th the “Sciota” had been raised, repaired, and sent around to Pensacola for her armament, with orders to proceed to New York and go into dry-dock. In the picture the man leaning against the bulwark, with one hand on his coat and the other in his trousers pocket, is John S. Pearce, one of the engineers of the famous “Kearsarge.”