The gist of the charge being that accused assumed undue authority and neglected to consult the officers of the quartermaster's department, and the court finding that accused did in fast consult Captain Hatch, the officer who possessed exclusive authority in the premises, the accusation of neglect of duty, as laid in the first specification, manifestly fails to be sustained. The second specification substantially avers that accused, without authority, overloaded the Sultana, against Captain Kerns' remonstrances, and that his criminal neglect occasioned the explosion of the vessel. The court, in strict accordance with the proofs, find that accused acted with authority; that Captain Kerns did not remonstrate with him, and that the explosion was not the result of the overloading of the steamer. What ground remains for visiting Captain Speed with a dishonorable and lifelong punishment, in view of the light in which the court regard his acts, is difficult to discover. The evidence shows that accused was appointed verbally by General Dana to act as commissioner of exchange during the temporary absence of Captain Williams; that Captain Williams returned the day before the men were sent to Vicksburg to go North, and that he immediately resumed the duties of his office. It is shown that Captain Kerns advised with Captain Williams against so many men going on one vessel, and that the latter insisted, very angrily, that they should all go by the Sultana; and it is further shown, by abundant evidence, that the boat, though overcrowded, was not overloaded; that in shipments of troops by steamer no attention was ever paid, throughout the war, to the legal carrying capacity of the ship; that the Sultana ran smoothly on the trip; and finally that the explosion was owing, not to the excess in the number of men she was conveying, but to the fact that since her last official survey, made ten days previous, and at which she was pronounced to be stauoilers had been burned, through the probable carelessness of her engineer, and had been repaired imperfectly with a patch of thinner iron.

Terrible as was the disaster to the Sultana, there is no evidence that it was caused by the overcrowding of her decks, and it is therefore difficult to say upon whom the responsibility for the loss of 1,100 lives should really rest. The engineer testifies that he considered the boilers well and sufficiently repaired, but his criminality in risking the lives of so many men, knowing, as he did, the condition of his boat, was great and without palliation. Whoever should be regarded as meriting punishment for his connection with the event, it is believed that it is not Captain Speed. The selection of the Sultana is shown to have been by Captain Hatch, the chief quartermaster, not by the accused. Captain Speed is shown to have been in frequent consultation with Captain Hatch, who, moreover, is proved to have previously promised a full load to the captain of the Sultana, and to have sent the latter to Captain Speed in reference to the matter. Captain Williams is shown to have taken almost the entire direction of affairs on his return from the North, and to have insisted that the prisoners should not be divided; and Captain Speed, the accused, is proven to have believed the control of the arrangements to be so completely taken out of his hands that he went to the Sultana while the men were going on board only through an accident, and performed no services while there, convinced that his duties had ended when he brought the prisoners from Four-Mile Bridge to Vicksburg, and that to the commissioner of exchange, Captain Williams, and the officers of the quartermaster's department belonged the additional duty of shipping them to the North.