The American Civil War was over, and the S.S. Sultana was heading home, overloaded with recently liberated Union prisoners of war anxious to see their families. Even though the Sultana had a legal capacity of 376 passengers, there were more than 2,300 people crammed on the sagging decks with standing room only.
At 2:00 a.m., three of the ship’s four boilers exploded, destroying a good portion of the ship and sending hundreds of soldiers flying into the icy water. Some of the dazed men were able to cling to floating wreckage until other boats arrived to rescue them, but most were not so fortunate.
When it was over, an estimated 1,600 of the 2,300 passengers perished, and many others were badly wounded. In fact, more people died in the Sultana disaster than the infamous Titanic. The Sultana might be listed as one of the greatest ocean disasters, except the Sultana never went to sea. It sank in the Mississippi River—only 150 yards from land. Moreover, news of this terrible steamboat tragedy was relegated to the newspapers’ back pages: it was April 27, 1865, and the War Between the States was just ending. The recent assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the killing of John Wilkes Booth, and the deaths of more than 600,000 soldiers in America’s bloodiest war filled the papers. Surrounded by violence, the nation had become desensitized to death. The deaths of 1,600 Union soldiers on their way home from Confederate prisons did not seem like front-page news.
And that's the rest of the story...
At 2:00 a.m., three of the ship’s four boilers exploded, destroying a good portion of the ship and sending hundreds of soldiers flying into the icy water. Some of the dazed men were able to cling to floating wreckage until other boats arrived to rescue them, but most were not so fortunate.
When it was over, an estimated 1,600 of the 2,300 passengers perished, and many others were badly wounded. In fact, more people died in the Sultana disaster than the infamous Titanic. The Sultana might be listed as one of the greatest ocean disasters, except the Sultana never went to sea. It sank in the Mississippi River—only 150 yards from land. Moreover, news of this terrible steamboat tragedy was relegated to the newspapers’ back pages: it was April 27, 1865, and the War Between the States was just ending. The recent assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the killing of John Wilkes Booth, and the deaths of more than 600,000 soldiers in America’s bloodiest war filled the papers. Surrounded by violence, the nation had become desensitized to death. The deaths of 1,600 Union soldiers on their way home from Confederate prisons did not seem like front-page news.
And that's the rest of the story...
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