Even at the time, reporters and newsletters of the event had many doubting the word of Bessels. Even the Fire-chief, many years later, seemed to question his word during a comment about the fire at his house. "He may know more than the Surgeon is letting on". The media was quite vocal of their suspicion, despite the Naval-Board's ruling. Of course, nowadays this would be grounds for defamation or slander, however- news was a lot more disorganized back then. This article snippet is from the Semi-Weekly-South-Kentuckian.
Emil Bessels had to emphatically claim his innocence, however, that never stopped people from believing what they willed, and suspicion of him seemed widespread, for what little media-coverage there was. In the Alexandria Gazette, he proclaims his testimony, backed up by the engineer- a friend of Bessels.
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