The Sultana Explosion
Wikimedia CommonsThe Sultana before she left, filled to the brim with Union soldiers.
On April 27, 1865, the United States experienced the worst maritime disaster in its history.
A steamboat, traveling up the Mississippi River bound for St. Louis, exploded, killing roughly 1,800 of the almost 2,500 people on board.
The steamboat started its journey in Vicksburg, Mississippi. The Sultana’s captain, J. Cass Mason, had agreed to transport recently freed Union prisoners of war back to the North in exchange for a per-passenger fee.
Hungry for money, Mason overloaded the 376 passenger Sultana with over 2,500 passengers, trusting that the waters of the Mississippi would be smooth for their journey.
They were not.
The river was at a flood stage, a time of the year when the waters hover dangerously close to overflowing levels. Trees and other debris often get pulled into the river by the high waters, creating a treacherous trip upriver. Not to mention that in April, temperatures can drop close to freezing.
The Sultana made it a few miles north of Memphis before disaster struck.
Wikimedia CommonsThe Sultana on fire.
At two in the morning, one of the steamboats boilers exploded. The explosion caused a domino effect, in turn rupturing the two boilers next to it.
A fire broke out, immediately engulfing the rear of the ship. The two paddle wheels fell off, causing the boat to turn backward into the wind, which blew the flames up the entirety of the ship.
Within minutes the entire steamboat was ablaze.
However, there were some survivors.
Despite the Civil War being over for just a few days, the steamboat’s Union veteran passengers were rescued by Confederate veterans. The boat had still been passing through Confederate territory when it burst into flames. Though they had been on different sides of the war just days before, they risked their lives to help their fellow soldiers.
Though the sinking of the Sultana is still the worst maritime disaster in U.S. history (resulting in roughly 300 more deaths than the sinking of the Titanic) there was hardly any news spread about it, due to the fact that an even larger tragedy had occurred just days before: the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.
Ironically, the reason the Sultana had even been in Mississippi was to deliver newspapers to the south, reporting the president’s death.
