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| Artist Robert Dafford--courtesy Vicksburg Riverfront Murals |
Captain Mason had the leaking boiler repaired with a riveted patch of boiler plate that was thinner than the original plate. The patch was completed in one day. The Captain took on cargo and additional passengers--over 2000 Union soldiers recently released from Confederate prison camps. Many of the freed prisoners were sick or injured. Some were mere skeletons, especially those who came from Andersonville, Georgia. They had to be carried on board.
The Sultana was designed for a crew of 85 and a legal capacity of 376 passengers with cargo. By the time the ship was ready to depart Vicksburg, there were over 2300 people on board. In addition, there were 60 horses and 100 hogs. Passengers were packed into every living space from the bottom hull to the pilothouse. The Federal Government paid steamboat companies about $5 per soldier for the trip upriver to Cairo, Illinois.
Several stops were made after the Sultana left Vicksburg. About seven miles north of Memphis, in the wee hours of the morning of April 27, 1865, three of the four large boilers exploded. Most of the crew and passengers were asleep. The Captain, it was generally believed, had allowed steam pressure* in the boilers to exceed limits. The force of the explosion instantly threw a great number of deck passengers into the river. Steam and hot coals soon turned the superstructure of the ship into a burning inferno above the river. Hundreds were killed or injured by the explosion. Passengers and crew, some with burning clothes and skin burn trauma, jumped overboard. Many drowned in the cold river. A rescue boat arrived about 3 A.M. and rescuers pulled scores of survivors from the river. Others who had jumped into the river swam to shore or drifted on wreckage until they were rescued later in the morning. By the time additional boats and ships arrived to assist, the burning wreck of the Sultana had drifted to the west and sunk near Marion, Arkansas. Of the estimated 500 survivors who had been pulled from the river and taken to hospitals and homes in Memphis, only 200 survived their severe burns and other injuries.
At least 1547 died according to U.S. Government records. But other estimates by researchers and historians put the number as high as 1700.
Newspapers of the day were still carrying stories about the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, which occurred on April 14, and the death of John Wilkes Booth on the day before the Sultana exploded. The tragedy and loss of life which occurred on this steamship received scant notice in the press. One exception was the Memphis Argus, which printed the story and published accounts of surviving witnesses on April 28, 1865.
Sultana Survivor Accounts, Memphis Argus, April 28, 1865
At the time of the explosion I was in
room 10. I jumped up and saw that the partition separating my stateroom from
the next room was knocked all to pieces. I ran out in the cabin and back to the
stern, and saw that we were not near the shore. While standing there I saw
fifty persons jump overboard every minute. I stood there for five minutes, but
seeing the boat in flames, I ran back to my stateroom and got some clothing. I
returned and jumped from the cabin floor down to the lower deck. I got up on
the taffrail and stood there until I saw three or four hundred people go
overboard. I stayed on board until the boat was burned clean to the stern and
the whole upper deck had fallen in, when I jumped overboard, having a door to
keep me up. I tried to make the Tennessee shore, but failed. I then tried to
make the Arkansas shore, but failed again. I then let myself float. Pretty soon
I saw lights. I then knew I was opposite Memphis. In floating I ran across a
large saw-log. I got on this, because I was almost exhausted and ready to sink.
I kept floating down, and pretty soon I picked up a soldier, and soon another,
and then another, until I had picked up four. We would keep quiet for a moment
and then hallo; and thus we went on until I was taken into a yawl with the
rest.
William Long, a civilian passenger
I was awake when the explosion took
place, lying on top of the wheelhouse. As soon as I discovered that the boat
had exploded I caught hold of the fender and slid down to the water and let
myself in, having nothing on me at the time. I judge I swam about two miles.
The river was alive with people crying and calling for help in the greatest
agony - it was heart-rending in the extreme. Just as I was coming down off the
boat, I saw two ladies who had thrown themselves into the water. They had
nothing to keep them up, and they sank, and I saw them no more. When the
explosion took place it threw the cabin into the air, and it fell back on the
boat in one mass of ruins, crushing many of the passengers who were thus
caught, and were undoubtedly burned to death. Very many caught hold of horses
by their manes and tails, but whether those escaped or not, it is impossible to
tell. I never heard of them afterwards.
Private Friend Albard, of the Second Michigan cavalry
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| Sultana on fire |
References:
1) Rootsweb Ancestry/Sultana
2) Civil War Talk--Sultana*
3) National Geographic--Sultana
4) Sultana Steamboat Tragedy--YouTube
5) Memorial to Sultana
6) History of Akron
7) Mississippi History Now (Highly Recommended)
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