"Secor Robeson's Sacrilege"
A survivor of the wreck of the iron clad Tecumseh, who lives in this city, received a letter on Monday from Geo. M. Duskin, United States attorney for the southern district of Alabama, informing him of the granting of a perpetual injunction against junk dealers, and all other persons, restraining them from interfering with the remains of the iron clad and two hundred men whose bones line her in hulk at the bottom of Mobile Bay.
The Tecumseh was sunk by a torpedo in the channel of Fort Morgan, Mobile Bay, in the fight under Admiral Farragut on the 5th of May, 1864, and of two hundred souls aboard, only seven escaped. They found egress through a hatch eighteen inches square in the turret. The wreck has lain ever since deep down in the quicksand where the vessel sank - a vast iron coffin for the men who went down in her, no attempt having been made to recover their bodies.
Secretary Robeson sold the wreck last winter to junk dealers for old iron. It being necessary to make some six hundred blasts to obtain the iron in pieces, which would have scattered the bones of the patriots in all directions, steps were taken to stop this desecration of the patriots' remains, and a temporary injunction was obtained. An appeal from the proceedings was taken by the junk dealers, and the United States Circuit Court for the District of Alabama has ordered that the injunction be perpetual.
