History Ceremony Honors
Firefighters Remembering those who died in pursuit of John Wilkes Booth.
By Brad Penney
A Memorial Service was
held on Sunday, April 24, honoring the soldiers and firefighters who perished
the night of April 23, 1865 during the collision of the steamship Massachusetts Alexandria Potomac , in
pursuit of Booth, at the time of the collision, which claimed a total of 87
lives.
The service was held at
the St. Clements Island Museum; the collision occurred just one mile off of the
island in southern Maryland , where military
intelligence expected Booth to undertake a night-time crossing of the Potomac
into Virginia
The Alexandria Fire
Department Honor Guard participated in the ceremony, which was attended by a
number of city firefighters who laid a wreath at the museum overlooking the
site of the collision. The four Alexandria
firefighters are buried in the Alexandria
National Cemetery 1450 Wilkes St
The story of the pursuit
of Booth by civilian employees of the Alexandria Fire Department has been
largely forgotten and overshadowed by the momentous other events of April 1865,
which included the evacuation of Richmond; the surrender of General Robert E.
Lee at Appomattox and later General Joseph Johnston in North Carolina; the
assassination of President Lincoln; and — the day after Booth was killed at
Garrett’s Farm — the sinking of the steamship Sultana on the Mississippi with a
loss of 1,800 lives, more casualties than were sustained in the loss of the
Titanic.
The Black Diamond was an
iron hull steam propeller canal boat (or barge) built in 1842. Before bring
chartered by the Quartermaster Corps during the war, the Black Diamond’s normal
duties were transporting coal between Washington, D.C. and Alexandria.
The crew of 20 consisted
of men from the Alexandria Virginia at the time
the collision with the Massachusetts
Plans are currently
underway for a monument to be erected on St. Clements Island in honor of the 87
soldiers and firefighters who died in the collision of the Massachusetts
.
