and replaced by someone else. When it came time to depart, the bottom of the ship had sunk into the mud and they had to wait until high tide for a tugboat to pull her out. However, later historians determined that the actual load was no more than 700 tons, well below its 900-ton carrying capacity. Within hours of leaving San Francisco Bay for Portland and Victoria, it ran into a gale. Most of the passengers became seasick and stayed in their cabins. Early on Sunday morning, July 30, 1865, the steamer anchored in Crescent City harbor on the first leg of its trip. After leaving the safety of the bay that Sunday afternoon, the ship encountered more stormy conditions. The seas were so bad near the California / Oregon border that the captain ordered the ship turned around for the harbor of Crescent City. Fifty-five minutes later on that return and close to port, the ship struck a rock, tearing a large hole in the hull. A heavy ore crusher had been loaded in the cargo hold directly above the portion of the hull that had been repaired a month earlier and smashed through it as well. Within five minutes, the captain realized the ship was foundering and ordered the passengers and crew to abandon ship. Although there were enough lifeboats to hold all of the people on board, only three boats could be deployed. Acts of courage and desperation, fear and self-sacrifice, were numerous. The rough waves capsized the first lifeboat that was lowered and smashed the second against the vessel's sides. Only a single surfboat, holding eleven crew members, five women, and three children, managed to escape and make it safely to Crescent City. Four boats in the harbor tried to reach the sinking ship but were forced to turn back by the storm. Among the victims were: Brigadier General George Wright, the former Union Commander of the Department of the Pacific, now on his way to take over the Department of the Columbia Dr. Anson G. Henry, Surveyor General of the Washington Territory, who was also Abraham Lincoln's physician and close friend James Nisbet, a well-known publisher, who wrote a love note and his will while awaiting his death Roseanna Keenan, a colorful San Francisco madam, who was travelling with seven "soiled doves" William Logan, who was appointed superintendent of The Dalles Mint in Oregon and