OHIO STATEWIDE FILES - Know your Ohio: The Sinking of the Steamship Sultana
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by
Darlene E. Kelley
http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00026.html#0006374
September 27, 1999
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Historical Collections of Ohio
The Kelley Family Collections
Newspaper article, Plains Dealer
compiled by S.J. Kelley-- 1925
And Then They Went West
by Darlene E. Kelley  1998
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The Sinking of the Steamship Sultana

On April 27, 1865, the Steamship Sultana exploded, burned and sank on
the Mississippi River about seven miles north of Memphis, Tennessee. The
260-foot wooden ship was a civilian steamship carrying mostly military
passengers on a contract basis of $ 5.00 per person. More than 1,800
men, women, and children died in the tragedy. Most of the men were Union
soldiers on their way home from Confederate prision camps. About 2,400
passengers were on board--six times the ship's legal limit. Ohio lost
791 men that dreadful night, the most of any state. Tennessee was next
with 514, while Indiana lost 459 men. Michigan lost 310 and Kentucky
194. Token numbers of men were lost from Virginia, Illinois, Iowa and
Pennsylvania.
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Part 1--

The most terrible steamboat disaster in history was probably the loss of
the Sultana in 1865. Some 1,700 returning veterans died --- yet the
tradedy got very few headlines. Late in April of 1865, the Mississippi
stood at flood stage. Four years of war had ruined many levees and
dikes, and in the lower valley the high water was only an incident, and
the dominant feeling was one of relief, for the civil war at last was
ended.
There would be no more fighting, no more destruction. War-time
bitterness and sadness might linger, but at least there was peace. The
war weary Union soldiers in the South had but one thought. They wanted
to go home. Vicksburg had been turned into a repatriation center, and
there were gathered thousands of gaunt, worn-out men in faded blue
uniforms---Union Prisoners of War-- just released from the horrors of
prison compounds like Andersonville, waiting in Vicksburg for
transportation to their homes.
More than any other soldiers, these were the impatient to get started.
Prison Camps in that war were hard places. In North and South alike.
Many men died in them of camp diseases, of bad housing, of simple
malnutrition. Most of the survivors were little better than
semi-invalids. Now their minds had no room for anything but a feverish
desire to get North to their mid-western homes, where they could see
their families, get out of uniform, and have the rest, care and good
food they needed so badly.
Most of them would go by river, and as April came to an end, a huge
contingent was slated to travel on the Sultana. The Sultana was a
typical side-wheeler built at Cincinnati in 1863 for the lower
Mississippi cotton trade. She was registered at 1,719 tons and carried a
crew of 85, and for two years she had been on a regular run between New
Orleans and St. Louis. From war department records it is known that she
frequently carried Army personennel up and down the river. One disspatch
of March 20, 1864, for instance, shows her carrying a contingent of the
Second Missouri colored troops.
The Sultana left New Orleans on April 21,1865, on what looked like a
regular run. She had from 75 to 100 cabin passengers, and a cargo which
included a hundred hogsheads of sugar and a hundred head of assorted
livestock. By law, she could carry 375 persons including her crew. She
was commanded by Captain J.C. Mason of St. Louis, who had the reputation
as a good, careful riverman. On the evening of April 24, the Sultana
made her regular stop at Vicksburg to take on passengers and cargo.
After she tied up, an engineer made a disturbing discovery: the boilers
were leaking rather badly.  It was determined to lay up briefly, draw
fires, and repair boilers and machinery before going up river to the
scheduled stops at Memphis, Cairo, Evansville, Louisville an Cincinnati.
The repair gang got to work and the job was done more quickly than had
been anticipated.
Meanwhile, the Sultana was taking on passengers-- a regular stampede of
passengers. A large number of repatriated Union prisoners of war were to
go North on this steamer, and the other men were so desperately eager to
start that the authorities decided not to make out the muster rolls in
advance, as usual. Instead the rolls would be made out on board, after
the vessel had left Vicksburg.
Boarding the vessel for the voyage home seemed to put new life into the
ex-prisoners. Weak as most of them were. they were shouting, singing,
and jesting as they came aboard, as lighthearted a crowd as ever came up
a gangplank. They came in almost unmanageable numbers, far beyond the
Sultana's rated capacity. Army reports do not give the exact number, but
apparently it was somewhere between 1,800 and 2,000. In addition, two
companies of soldiers under arms came on board. Altogether, there were
probably some 2,300 persons on the steamer when the lines were cast off.
Naturally, the boat was almost unbelievably crowded. The soldiers were
marching onto the hurricane deck, until all available space was filled.
They packed the steamer from top to bottom hull, cabins, Texas deck,
even the pilothouse. Almost literally, the steamer could not have
carried another human being.
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To be continued in part 2--