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Mrs. Quality and I were standing on the bank of the St. Johns at the very location this occurred just 2 nights ago, reading the historical marker about the Maple Leaf.

“Mrs. Quality and I were standing on the bank of the St. Johns at the very location this occurred just 2 nights ago, reading the historical marker about the Maple Leaf.”

Surprised the Republican former mayor of Jacksonville didn’t have the historical marker destroyed.

Guess it was outside his county.

Just ran across your comment about the Maple Leaf. During my research on the 55th Massachusetts Infantry, the second black unit raised in the North during the war, I discovered that two of the officers from the 55th were onboard the Maple Leaf when it hit the mine. Both survived. One was Lt. George T. Garrison, son of abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, and the other was Major Sigourney Wales. They lost all their baggage, as the steamer had been carrying the baggage and equipment for several other regiments. Then I read about the retrieval of artifacts from the wreck site, but never had a chance to travel to see them once they were set up in the museum.

I was just doing a search, and found a web page reporting that: "The Maple Leaf tragedy was documented by one of its surviving passengers, Lt. George T. Garrison, eldest son of Boston abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. The senior Garrison edited an anti-slavery newspaper The Liberator for 35 years."

“'George worked The Liberator printing press before joining the Mass. 55th Regiment, one of two regiments of black soldiers from the state, said Fritz Garrison, great-grandson of Lt. Garrison." It goes on to say: “The sole surviving item from the Maple Leaf — prior to its rediscovery by Dr. Holland — is a letter that my great grandfather wrote to his mother detailing news of the regiment.”

"The survivors rowed three lifeboats twelve miles 'with the wind and tide against us all the way,' north to Jacksonville after the sinking. The following morning, Garrison wrote a second letter relating the events surrounding the explosion, which was printed in The Liberator several weeks later."

“He also re-penned much of the first letter, believing it had gone down with the ship,” added his great grandson. “What he didn’t know at the time is that the first letter survived in a soggy mail bag that was retrieved the following day.”

"That letter, now on deposit with the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston, bears the marks of a creeping waterline that was only hours from destroying the document altogether."

I found the information about Garrison and Wales being on the Maple Leaf in a collection of papers at Cornell University. They had belonged to the Asst. Surgeon of the regiment, Dr. Burt Green Wilder. After the war, he had corresponded with many of his fellow officers, as well as the enlisted men, and even with some of the members of Confederate units that the 55th had been engaged against around Charleston, S.C.

Also in that collection I discovered bits and pieces of Garrison's diary that he kept during his time in the 55th, and although I tried very hard to get one of his descendants to let me have access to it, it never happened.

Hope I didn't bore you with my ramblings. Even though I've moved on from the Civil War to other periods of history, the several years I spent, and the wonderful people I met along the way, are still very special to me.

Here are links to photos of Garrison and Wales if you're interested:

George T. Garrison

Sigourney Wales