The 1912 sinking of the Titanic is the nation’s most famous shipwreck, depicted on stage and screen while capturing the imagination of wistful Americans for its luxurious grandeur. Of course, the hundreds of low-fare passengers down below in steerage would have told a different story.
Ask most Americans, and they will tell you that the Titanic is the deadliest maritime disaster in our history. And they would be wrong.
The fiery loss of the Sultana, a badly overcrowded steamboat on the Mississippi that exploded on April 27, 1865, cost over 1,700 lives – exceeding the 1,517 lost on the Titanic. Incredibly, the Sultana disaster received remarkably little press, then or now.
Many of the Sultana victims had survived prison camps during the Civil War, including the horrors of Andersonville. But they never made it home because officers may have chosen kickbacks over the safety of the men.
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Built in 1863 in Cincinnati, the Sultana was a four-deck wooden steamboat measuring 260 feet long by 42 feet wide and weighing 1,719 tons with 34-foot paddlewheels. Designed to carry a maximum of 376 people including a crew of 85, the Sultana also frequently hauled cargo, and was a fixture up and down the river. One photo of the St. Louis riverfront in 1864 shows a crowd of steamboats, including the Sultana.
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As the Civil War concluded 155 years ago this spring, soldiers were anxious to return home by any means possible. Transport companies were only too willing to oblige.
The government paid $5 per enlisted man and $10 per officer for transport home, heady sums for the day. Seedy ship captains sometimes kicked back $1.15 to unscrupulous army personnel, so plenty of money was changing hands at the expense of homesick men.
The captain and master of the Sultana, J. Cass Mason, wanted a piece of this lucrative trade, and had good reason. Financially strapped, he had sold most of his interest in the boat to his first clerk, and other buyers.
Mason dealt with some of the Army officers at Vicksburg, including Lt. Col. Reuben B. Hatch, whose brother, Ozias, had been Illinois Secretary of State and a close supporter of Abraham Lincoln. Now the quartermaster of the Department of Mississippi, Hatch had been accused of taking bribes in a similar role at Cairo earlier in the war but never faced a court-martial because his well-connected friends had appealed to Lincoln, arguing his innocence.
Lincoln appointed a civil commission to investigate, but two of the three men in the group were from Illinois. Not surprisingly, Hatch was cleared, though a separate commission in 1865 in New Orleans had found him “totally unfit” for another quartermaster position. But 10 days later, Hatch landed his position in the Department of Mississippi.
Heading the actual duties of prisoner exchange at Vicksburg was Capt. George Augustus Williams, who had been dismissed as provost marshal at Memphis in 1864 for “excessive cruelty to prisoners and gross neglect of duty.”
Williams, however, was saved when Ulysses S. Grant stepped in. When he was absent from Vicksburg, as was the case for part of April 1865, Capt. Frederic Speed filled his place.
Various exchanges followed between Mason, Hatch, Williams, Speed, Brig. Gen. Morgan L. Smith, and others as more Union soldiers poured into Vicksburg. Many were shuttled to the Sultana, which became more and more overcrowded.
On the way to Vicksburg, the Sultana had developed a leak in a boiler, which had already been patched at least twice. A local boilermaker recommended wholesale repairs but Mason declined, likely thinking that the job would take time, and he could lose his chance at a load full of passengers.
As a result, the boiler was patched once again, and Mason readied for the trip. Williams dismissed concerns that men be directed onto other boats, and passengers piled up on the Sultana.
Though Vicksburg was jammed with Union soldiers, the Pauline Carroll, which was docked next to the Sultana, left with 17 passengers. No former prisoners were on another boat, the Lady Gay.
The Sultana, meanwhile, left Vicksburg for the upriver trip to Cairo at 9 p.m. April 24. Though estimates vary, there were over 2,100 soldiers, 100 civilian passengers, and 85 crewmen on board. Some estimates place the entire total as high as 2,485. Regardless of the exact number, it was five to six times over the legal limit.
In a time before safety regulations, the crush of humanity aboard the Sultana was protected by only two small lifeboats and 76 life preservers.
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The Sultana chugged upriver, weighed down by the mass of passengers that caused the decks to sag and aroused fears that too many men on one side of the decks could cause a capsize. The river was swollen from spring flooding, adding to the burden on the ship’s boilers. In some places, the channel was 4 miles wide, with floodwaters nearly topping trees on the banks.
The vessel stopped briefly in Helena, Arkansas, where a photo taken of the ship on April 26 revealed the incredible number of soldiers on the decks. Men were jammed into any available space, and in some places, it was standing room only. There was barely room to sleep.
At 7 p.m. April 26, the Sultana pulled into Memphis, where the vessel spent four hours while 120 tons of sugar were unloaded from the cargo hold. She left around midnight, heading across the river for Hopefield, Arkansas, to load a thousand bushels of coal to fire the overworked boilers.
The trip upriver resumed, though crew and many passengers had been wary of the scenario since leaving Vicksburg. Sgt. John Ely summed it up before the trip when he penned in his diary, “the Sultana was a large but not very fine boat.”
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At 2 a.m. April 27, the Sultana was 7 miles north of Memphis when one of the boilers exploded, followed by two more. A modern source described the “volcanic fury,” while a witness on shore compared the noise to “a hundred earthquakes.”
The blast ripped through the decks above, instantly killing hundreds. More died when the decks collapsed into the fiery interior of the ship. Scores of men were burned or scalded to death, crushed by debris, or blown apart by the force of the explosion.
Others were faced with a horrific choice – jump into the water or be burned alive. Many of those who made it to the water could not swim. Others succumbed to the scalding heat. Those who managed to survive the swift current sometimes grabbed for branches that poked above the water or lined the banks. One survivor floated nearly 10 miles on the back of a dead mule.
Various boats on the river tried rescue attempts but were able to reach the Sultana no earlier than 3 a.m. By then, the Sultana had burned to the waterline in around 20 minutes.
Rescuers were haunted by the screams of victims. One of the vessels that finally made it to the scene was the USS Tyler, which had patrolled the Mississippi since the start of the war. A sailor on that craft wrote in the log that “of all the sounds and noises I ever heard that was the most sorrowful, some cursing, calling for help, and shrieking. I will never forget those awful sounds.”
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Over 700 survivors ended up in hospitals, where many died from their injuries. The precise death toll is not known, since no one knew exactly how many passengers were on the Sultana. Many estimate the total casualties are over 1,700.
The exact cause of the explosion is debated, though an investigation afterward pointed to the insufficient boiler repair. Nearly all modern researchers, however, come to the obvious conclusion – the ship was grossly overloaded with passengers.
Speed, who was considered to be the commanding officer in Williams’ absence, was found guilty at a court-martial and scheduled for dismissal from the army. But the verdict was reversed, allowing an honorable muster-out.
Though summoned, Hatch never faced a court-martial, as he was relieved of his position on June 3 and continued his questionable ways. Many of the principals involved went on to influential political and civic positions. In the end, no one was held accountable for the tragedy of the Sultana.
The Sultana disaster received remarkably little press, possibly because of the many events of April 1865. The list of news stories that month included Robert E. Lee’s surrender, President Lincoln’s assassination, and John Wilkes Booth’s pursuit and death. In addition, the nation may have been desensitized to mass casualties in the immediate aftermath of the bloodiest war in American history.
Today, several cities have memorials to the Sultana, while the city of Marion, Arkansas, located near the site of the tragedy, has opened a museum on the deadliest shipwreck in American history – one that could have been avoided.
• Tom Emery is a freelance writer and historical researcher from Carlinville, Illinois. He may be reached at 217-710-8392 or ilcivilwar@yahoo.com.