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FS: What was the role played by the last Sultana in the Civil War, and how significant was that role? You have permission to edit this article. Yet, shortly after my 1996 book came out, a cabal of people sprang up touting the sabotage theory once again. [4]:50,5556 Although Sultana had a legal capacity of only 376, by the time she backed away from Vicksburg on the night of April 24, she was severely overcrowded with over 1,953 paroled prisoners, 22 guards from the 58th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, over 70 fare-paying cabin passengers, and 85 crew members, for a total of 2,130 people. Steamboats ultimately carried more men and freight in the Civil War than the faster and more expensive railroads. That day, he says, the water was moving very quickly and contained a lot of trees and other debris. At around 2:00AM on April 27, 1865, when Sultana was about seven miles (11km) north of Memphis, its patched boiler suddenly and violently exploded, killing 400-500 men instantly. Near midnight, Sultana left Memphis, leaving behind about 200 men. Immediately, Captain Mason grabbed an armload of Cairo newspapers and headed south to spread the news, knowing that telegraphic communication with the southern states had been almost totally cut off because of the recently-ended American Civil War. The event remains the worst maritime disaster in U.S. history (the sinking of the Titanic killed 1,512 people). Explosion of the Moselle, Near Cincinnati, Ohio, April 25, 1838. Steamboats of the Mississippi - Wikipedia The Sultana tragedies seem to be classic examples of putting profit over safety. ARCHERAt Galena, from St. Louis, Sept. 8, 1845; sunk by collision with steamer "Di Vernon", in chute between islands 521 and 522, five miles above mouth of Illinois River, Nov. 27, 1851; was cut in two, and sunk in three minutes, with a loss of forty-one lives. The steamer registered 1,719 tons[2] and normally carried a crew of 85. "At 2 a.m., one of the boilers exploded, resulting in two other boilers exploding," Potter says. And it was very cold. Burning of the Orline St. John, near Montgomery, Alabama, March 2, 1850. Iowa is the only state with four border rivers, the Mississippi, Missouri, Des Moines, and Big Sioux. Frank Barton is the descendant of one of those Confederate soldiers, a man named Franklin Hardin Barton. While wealthy patrons might buy drinks all night at the bar, the bar was usually privately owned, with just a share of the profits going to the steamboat captain and/or owner. The sediment tended to settle on the bottom of the boilers or clog between the flues and leave hotspots. In the 1820s, steamboats on the Mississippi carried lead from Julien Dubuque's lead mines near Dubuque. The U.S. government would pay US$2.75 per enlisted man and US$8 per officer to any steamboat captain who would take a group north. Most were Union soldiers, newly released from Confederate prison camps. A potential reader should care about this story because it shows that greed and corruption in the government is not a new thing. In the 1820s, steamboats on the Mississippi carried lead from Julien Dubuque's lead mines near Dubuque. Lead was a very important export from the Dubuque area. Author Q&ADestruction of the Steamboat Sultana Only six years before, it had foundered in the river near Chester, Ill., with one crew member lost. In 2015, after I retired, I decided to look at all the known lists to discover who was actually on the Sultana and how many lived and died. Beneath Tennessee River, Steamboat Wreckage Presents Mystery Once the driving force of the southeast Tennessee city's economic growth, Chattanooga's riverfront is home to just the 10th shipwreck recorded in state history - a boat whose story time forgot. Steamboats should not have been racing each other, but it happened all the time, and the public loved it! A sister boat to the famous Natchez, the Princess had undergone a thorough retrofitting the previous summer and was said to be one of the fastest and most luxurious craft on the Mississippi River. Yet few know the story of the Sultana's demise, or the ensuing rescue effort that included Confederate soldiers saving Union soldiers they might have shot just weeks earlier. Reuben Benton Hatch, an individual with a long history of corruption and incompetence, who kept his job through political connections: he was the younger brother of Illinois politician Ozias M. Hatch, an advisor and close friend of President Lincoln. Considered one of them was the biggest vessel ever to sail via the world. Get up-to-the-minute news sent straight to your device. ", 15th Michigan Volunteer Infantry Regiment, Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company, Judge Advocate General of the United States Army, "Sultana: A Tragic Postscript to the Civil War", https://www.nationalboard.org/SiteDocuments/General%20Meeting/Jennings.pdf, "The Sultana Disaster (Coal Torpedo theory)", http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/investigation/civil-war-sabotage/, Sultana museum in Arkansas memorializes 1,169 people who died in river, "Surviving the Worst: The Wreck of the Sultana at the End of the American Civil War", "Blues in the Water, by King's German Legion", "Ardent Presents: Cory Branan "The Wreck of the Sultana", "Remember the Sultana | Film Threat - Part 2", Shipwrecks and maritime incidents in 1865, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sultana_(steamboat)&oldid=1152358259, Articles with incomplete citations from April 2022, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles with unsourced statements from April 2022, Articles with unsourced statements from July 2018, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Initially Capt. Steamboats on the River | Iowa PBS The Nick Wall was a sternwheel river packet that struck a snag on the Mississippi River near Grand Lake (Chicot County) on December 18, 1870. Its dining room was graced with chandeliers and red carpet. Who Was John Wilkes Booth Before He Became Lincoln's Assassin. As to whether it is a good thing or not, yes, I believe that it is a good thing to do so much research and get so much information from the internet. As a lawyer, Potter was well-equipped to investigate the mistakes and malfeasance that led to the Sultana disaster. Tubular boilers were discontinued from use on steamboats plying the Lower Mississippi after two more steamboats with tubular boilers exploded shortly after the Sultana explosion.