Episode 163
The Sultana Disaster: America's Forgotten Maritime Tragedy
In this episode of 'Talk With History,' hosts Scott and Jen transport listeners to April 1865, detailing the tragic and largely forgotten story of the Sultana disaster.
As a Mississippi Steamboat, the Sultana was overloaded with Union soldiers returning home from Confederate prisons. Just north of Memphis, the ship's boilers exploded, resulting in America's deadliest maritime disaster, with over 1,200 lives lost. The disaster was overshadowed by the news of John Wilkes Booth's death, thereby fading into obscurity.
Scott and Jenn discuss the historical context, the causes of the explosion, and visit the Sultana Disaster Museum in Marion, Arkansas, which commemorates this tragic event.
📍 Google Maps to Sultana Disaster Locations
🎥 Video version of this podcast
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00:00 A Journey Back in Time: The Sultana Disaster
02:05 Introduction to Talk with History Podcast
03:07 The Overlooked Maritime Tragedy
05:50 The Sultana's Final Voyage
15:45 The Boiler Issues Begin
17:46 Overcrowding and Imminent Disaster
19:58 Riverboat Design Challenges
21:14 The Sultana's Final Voyage
23:25 Aftermath and Rescue Efforts
25:44 Identifying the Victims
27:33 Historical Overshadowing
29:42 Visiting the Sultana Disaster Museum
33:36 What happened to the men who caused this?
35:12 Remembering the Sultana
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Transcript
I want you to walk back in time with me and imagine we are deckhand on a
Speaker:Mississippi Steamboat in the 1860s.
Speaker:April, 1865.
Speaker:The Mississippi Air was thick, not just with humidity, but with the thousands of
Speaker:union soldiers crammed onto the Sultana.
Speaker:As a deckhand, I'd seen our steamer full, but this was different.
Speaker:They were fresh from Confederate prisons, eager for home, their hope.
Speaker:Palpable.
Speaker:I was in the engine room feeling the boiler's familiar thrombin when it hit,
Speaker:not a shutter, but a sudden deafening roar, a blinding flash, scalding steam,
Speaker:and debris tore through the deck.
Speaker:Above the sound was a metallic shriek, followed by the screams.
Speaker:The ship lurched violently.
Speaker:I scrambled out, choking on smoke eyes stinging.
Speaker:A ship was tearing apart her wooden hole, no match for the blast.
Speaker:Orange flames raced across the decks where men had just been singing panic erupted.
Speaker:Soldiers many two weak to swim, lept, or were thrown into the frigid water.
Speaker:Screams for help for God, for mothers were everywhere.
Speaker:Men disappeared into the churning water swallowed by debris and flames.
Speaker:The Mississippi usually so gentle, became a hungry monster.
Speaker:That night, I grabbed a floating crate, my lungs, burning muscles
Speaker:screaming from the cold water.
Speaker:The strong current pulled us downstream away from the burning wreck.
Speaker:Looking back, the sultana was a fiery inferno, a jagged burning
Speaker:skeleton against the now orange sky.
Speaker:The noise faded, replaced by the chilling cries of survivors in the water.
Speaker:We drifted, numb and shivering watching our world burn as we drifted away.
Speaker:The sun rose later painting the sky with bright colors that felt
Speaker:so at odds with the darkness below.
Speaker:Welcome to talk with History.
Speaker:I'm your host Scott here with my wife and historian Jen.
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Speaker:On this podcast, we give you insights to our history inspired, bold travels
Speaker:YouTube channel journey, and examine history through deeper conversations
Speaker:with the curious, the explorers, and the history lovers out there.
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Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Alright Jen, so the Sultana disaster, this is something that some people,
Speaker:a lot of people, especially, you know here in America right,
Speaker:have probably may have heard of.
Speaker:But I would say most folks don't know about, but this is the largest
Speaker:American maritime disaster ever, period.
Speaker:Yeah, I would say most people don't know about it.
Speaker:I would say when I bring up the Sultana with most people, it's
Speaker:really history buffs who might know it, but most your average everyday
Speaker:person have no idea where the average everyday person knows the Titanic.
Speaker:Or they know about the USS Arizona.
Speaker:But they do not know about the Sultana.
Speaker:And so yes, this is the greatest maritime disaster in American history
Speaker:happened during the Civil War.
Speaker:And and most people don't know about it 'cause it was overshadowed
Speaker:by another major historical event.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:And that historical event is probably something everybody knows about as well.
Speaker:So it's understandable why people don't know about this, but it's sad because.
Speaker:These victims have been forgotten then because of that and because they, they're
Speaker:like literally forgotten because the most unknown Civil War soldiers the
Speaker:second most is in Memphis, Tennessee.
Speaker:And it's because of this disaster.
Speaker:And so it's one of those things that it.
Speaker:Could benefit from more research, it could benefit from people digging in
Speaker:and learning more about these men.
Speaker:But unfortunately it's just so unknown that it just needs more
Speaker:awareness to the average everyday person and history in general.
Speaker:Now, when you say it happened during the Civil War, it, I think it
Speaker:technically happened like right after the Civil War was technically over,
Speaker:like literally the war had just ended.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And we're, I know we're gonna get into the details.
Speaker:The war had just ended a couple thousand prisoners ish.
Speaker:Are released from prisons down down south and are getting brought back north.
Speaker:So tell us Yeah.
Speaker:The surrounding events around this.
Speaker:Yeah, so like you said, it happens in April, 1865, so it's this
Speaker:big month of history, right?
Speaker:So yes, the surrender happens in April of 1865.
Speaker:Lincoln is assassinated.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:April, 1865.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Appomattox was like April 9th or something like that.
Speaker:April 9th.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Then Lincoln then.
Speaker:This happens April 27th, 1865.
Speaker:So it's like this whole month is filled with these big historic
Speaker:events, and the first two are so huge it overshadows this third one.
Speaker:But yes, technically you're right, Scott.
Speaker:It's, it's, I would say civil war timeframe.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But not during this.
Speaker:It's, it's the aftermath of the Civil War.
Speaker:So like you talked about, it was a. The Sultana was a side wheel steamboat
Speaker:on the Mississippi River, and when we talk about the Mississippi River,
Speaker:it really is like the main highway of this, of the country at the time.
Speaker:railroads are really starting to find themselves being very important
Speaker:during this time, but the Mississippi has held its its importance.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Before the Civil War.
Speaker:After the Civil War, and because that is so important when Vicksburg falls,
Speaker:it really is like the end of the Civil War because now the union controls
Speaker:the Mississippi and that is this vital vein through the entire of America.
Speaker:Yeah, and actually when I had originally written my intro with
Speaker:this kind of story there, I had written it that the characters.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:Us were actually kind of didn't, didn't know what side they were on.
Speaker:They just knew that business was busy.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Because the Mississippi was important, whether you were in the
Speaker:south, whether you're in the north.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:And most likely, I would guess a lot of these Steamboats were
Speaker:probably operating within, I wouldn't say with impunity 'cause it.
Speaker:'cause it sounds like, they don't care what side they're on, but I would
Speaker:imagine they were busy regardless of who was controlling what port.
Speaker:So commerce, right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It's so important to trade and so it's vital to the north and the south.
Speaker:It's vital to the economics of the north and south.
Speaker:That's why when the North finally controls it, they can control how much.
Speaker:Supplies are getting to the south.
Speaker:And so they're not letting that happen.
Speaker:And the north is taking all the supplies.
Speaker:So the people who are operating on the Mississippi, yes, they're still
Speaker:holding allegiances to one side or the other, but they're still, overall,
Speaker:their motivation is the dollar money.
Speaker:And so much so the Sultana is known as the fastest ship on the
Speaker:Mississippi, and we talk about.
Speaker:In the video why that is, it's, it just has made the fastest voyage
Speaker:from Cairo to new Orleans, and that's how they measured that.
Speaker:And so it gets to have the antlers between, its two smokestacks and that is
Speaker:a symbol for everybody on the Mississippi, that if you wanna trade your goods or get
Speaker:your goods to the major ports, new Orleans this ship will get it there the fastest.
Speaker:And it was really neat because.
Speaker:We'll talk about the museum that we went to in Marion, Arkansas.
Speaker:That is the Sultana Disaster Museum.
Speaker:That's actually getting a new location, new, new, improved location.
Speaker:One of the docents there, she taught us about the antlers, which
Speaker:I, we thought was really neat.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:And I believe like they even would race, and I don't know if they were like
Speaker:actually sitting side by side racing, but they were just like, who can make
Speaker:the fastest trip up, up, and down?
Speaker:And then, then they would get these antlers because if you didn't know
Speaker:that factor, you'd be like, why are there these random antlers
Speaker:strung between the smokestacks?
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:So they're actually strung between the smokestacks.
Speaker:And if you look, and for those watching the video, I'll put
Speaker:up a picture of the Sultana.
Speaker:You can actually see a pair of antlers strung between the two smokestacks of
Speaker:the Sultana indicating that they had.
Speaker:That they were currently, they had won the recent fastest time
Speaker:or whatever that was Right.
Speaker:They're the Millennium Falcon of them.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So it's a side wheel Steamboat and like I talked to before on the
Speaker:video and side, so Steamboats come in like three different variations.
Speaker:You got the paddle wheel in the back, which is a lot what people think of when
Speaker:they think of paddle wheels or, or, or.
Speaker:It's wheel driven ships on the Mississippi, but a side wheel, the
Speaker:Sultana has a side wheel on each side of the ship and not as big as a, as a
Speaker:stern wheel would be split the side.
Speaker:But the neat thing about a side wheel is one wheel can move forward.
Speaker:One wheel can move in reverse, and it can really maneuvered the ship a lot more.
Speaker:Easily to get it close to the sides of the riverbank, which is what the
Speaker:Mississippi is doing because it's pulling into these ports right on the side.
Speaker:And so it can really get close in to get loaded on and off.
Speaker:And so the versatility of how you can maneuver that ship
Speaker:made a side wheel so much more
Speaker:advantageous for Mississippi Travel.
Speaker:And then you have an internal wheel.
Speaker:So those are the three different kinds.
Speaker:You have a stern wheel, you have side wheels, internal wheel.
Speaker:Internal wheel is inside the ship.
Speaker:You don't really see it from the outside.
Speaker:That one is not as used as much because it's dangerous.
Speaker:If you ever have traveled on the Mississippi, we, I have extensively
Speaker:you get a lot of trees that will.
Speaker:Wash off and tro down the Mississippi.
Speaker:If it's pulled into a internal wheel, it really does damage inside the ship.
Speaker:And so they really didn't use those as much.
Speaker:But those are the three types of wheeled boats, ships you
Speaker:would see along the Mississippi.
Speaker:But Sultana a side wheel now it's built in 1863, so it's not a very old ship.
Speaker:Oh, I didn't realize that when you think about this, didn't realize that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And it's really intended for this lower Mississippi trade,
Speaker:so it really has made its name.
Speaker:Doing a regular route between St. Louis and New Orleans, and
Speaker:it has a crew capacity of 376.
Speaker:Remember that because this is gonna be its downfall.
Speaker:Now it's first launched in January of 1863 and like I said,
Speaker:it's, it's about 260 feet long.
Speaker:It's 42 feet wide, and two side mounted paddle wheels driven by four.
Speaker:Fire tube boilers.
Speaker:So those boilers make a difference too.
Speaker:So think tube boiler per wheel, per side.
Speaker:And when we talk about the boilers, they're 18 feet long and they
Speaker:contain 25 24 or five inch flutes.
Speaker:They're kind of like, hold the water and boil it.
Speaker:And that's where you're getting the steam and that's how you're driving these ships.
Speaker:So, think about.
Speaker:How this is all working together.
Speaker:'cause this is all gonna be the downfall of this ship.
Speaker:So what happens this, these events, like you said, the Civil War,
Speaker:the surrender happens April 9th.
Speaker:The Sultana finds itself in.
Speaker:St. Louis.
Speaker:On April 15th, right after the president's been assassinated.
Speaker:That's right.
Speaker:And it gets, and the captain, and we have Captain James Ka.
Speaker:Cass Mason is just informed of the assassination of the president.
Speaker:So he runs out and gets as many newspapers as he can to get the
Speaker:information down to New Orleans.
Speaker:'cause he knows he's the fastest ship on the Mississippi.
Speaker:They drape the ship in morning cloth, which they buy.
Speaker:Lots of black cloth and they drape the ship in morning cloth.
Speaker:'cause that's also like a symbol and a message they can send as
Speaker:they go down the Mississippi.
Speaker:Think a lot of people still aren't literate at this time.
Speaker:That's why the antlers are such a symbol for everyone to
Speaker:understand what that means.
Speaker:Draping a ship in morning cloth is also a great symbol for the nation to see along
Speaker:this massive highway of America that.
Speaker:Our president has been assassinated.
Speaker:That's,
Speaker:I mean, that's how they got the news out, that that's, that's also part
Speaker:of the reason, after Lincoln was assassinated, that they, I think.
Speaker:Probably a small part of the reason why they took the long train route Yep.
Speaker:To get him back, to Illinois where he was eventually interred was to
Speaker:let the nation see and get the news that way, to believe that this is
Speaker:something that actually happened.
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:Because there's no television.
Speaker:And the people wanna mourn as a nation.
Speaker:And so the train route is so significant and so is this Mississippi?
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:Water route.
Speaker:So Captain Mason does his job.
Speaker:I would say as a, as a, a leader on the Mississippi, he is taking the news
Speaker:from St. Louis down to New Orleans.
Speaker:He leaves St. Louis, April 13th, 1865, bound for.
Speaker:New Orleans on the morning of April 15th, he's tied up in Cairo when the
Speaker:word reaches that Lincoln has been shot.
Speaker:So it's the 15th when he hears the information in Cairo even though
Speaker:he leaves from St. Louis on the 13th, and that's when he gets an r
Speaker:load of the newspapers from Cairo and Heads South to spend the news.
Speaker:Now he hits Vicksburg first and in Vicksburg, he talks to a Captain
Speaker:Reuben Hatch, the chief quartermaster at Vicksburg with a proposal.
Speaker:So they know union prisoners of war are gonna be released,
Speaker:people are gonna be pardoned.
Speaker:They're coming from Cahaba that is a confederate prisoner of war camp in Selma.
Speaker:And they're coming from Andersonville that's a very famous Confederate
Speaker:prisoner of war camp in Atlanta, Georgia.
Speaker:And they know that.
Speaker:Those paroled soldiers are gonna be hit in Vicksburg and they're gonna
Speaker:wanna be going back home, back north.
Speaker:And the US government would pay $2 and 75 cents per enlisted man and $8 per officer.
Speaker:So they come to an understanding.
Speaker:Knowing Mason needs money, hatch suggested that he could give him a
Speaker:load of about a thousand prisoners.
Speaker:Now, bear in mind it's gonna be loaded with almost double of that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And and and they're only supposed to have like 360 ish.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And only if Mason would agree to give Hatch a kickback.
Speaker:So he agrees to Hatch's off where he's like, yes, let's do this.
Speaker:And then he leaves Burg.
Speaker:Heading down to New Orleans.
Speaker:So they have this plan in place, right?
Speaker:Because Hatch knows the prisoners are gonna be coming to Vicksburg.
Speaker:He'll hold them there.
Speaker:He'll wait until the Sultana makes its way back up north after hitting
Speaker:New Orleans with all the news.
Speaker:And then they have this plan already worked out, so they don't even have
Speaker:to talk about it when they come back.
Speaker:So this is already understood.
Speaker:Before they even load on the prisoners and before they even hit
Speaker:Vicksburg to get the prisoners.
Speaker:So it's an understood agreement.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I don't think I realized that it had been that.
Speaker:That's set up by, by the, the, the players, the ship's
Speaker:captain and some other folks.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:So they leave Vicksburg, they're they're down in New Orleans.
Speaker:They disperse all the newspapers.
Speaker:They disperse the news, and they leave New Orleans on April 21st,
Speaker:and they have about 70 cabin and deck passengers and some livestock.
Speaker:So there's about.
Speaker:70 paying passengers on board too.
Speaker:So again, legal capacity, 376 85, crew 70 paid passengers, and
Speaker:so they have about 150 people.
Speaker:As they hit Vicksburg to get loaded up.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:So, but what happens is about 10 hours south of Vicksburg, before
Speaker:they even hit Vicksburg, one of their four boilers springs a leak.
Speaker:Oh.
Speaker:So they already have a boiler.
Speaker:Issue.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Before they even get to Vicksburg.
Speaker:So that's before later on when things start getting outta
Speaker:outta whack as far as balance.
Speaker:'cause there's too many people.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:So these say, think of these boilers are already handicapped.
Speaker:So it's when they get to Vicksburg that they.
Speaker:Get a boiler repair, and it's just like a quick fix.
Speaker:It's not a new boiler to replace everything they're taking and a boiler
Speaker:is under mass amount of pressure and heat, and they're just repairing
Speaker:this boiler, which they're gonna put a lot of stress on this boiler.
Speaker:So this is, this is the whole issue by why, why this happens.
Speaker:It wasn't like they had four great working boilers as they're leaving Vicksburg.
Speaker:They have three great working boilers and one that's severely.
Speaker:Incapacitated.
Speaker:Well, and if you think about it and, and we call this a Sultana disaster, right?
Speaker:And we know from the intro that, that the, one of the, one of the boilers, if not
Speaker:a couple explode, but they're putting, think, if you think about just total load
Speaker:that this, the boilers are designed to handle, which is less than 400 people.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And they end up with what, like over 2000 on board?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:At, at the end of the day when everyone's loaded on board, it's 21, 27.
Speaker:So they're putting like.
Speaker:700% more
Speaker:mm-hmm.
Speaker:Than, stress and effort and all the stuff on these boilers.
Speaker:So that's interesting about the leak and like the repair.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So when you think about four boilers, and they're supposed to have 376 people, each
Speaker:boiler handles less than a hundred people.
Speaker:When they load on 2,127, each boiler's gonna handle over 500 people, right?
Speaker:So, like you said, yeah, like they're taxing these boilers
Speaker:way outside of their capacity.
Speaker:Plus you have one that's just been repaired.
Speaker:So this is where the whole issue starts.
Speaker:So they reach Vicksburg on the 23rd.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:And and they start to load people on.
Speaker:And like I said, they get, they had just gotten all those release prisoners
Speaker:from those two Confederate of prisoner of war camps, and they load on.
Speaker:They believe that they're loading on less than 1500.
Speaker:In actuality, they load on 1,950 paroled prisoners.
Speaker:So like they had made the deal for a thousand, right?
Speaker:They double that 'cause they're just not paying attention.
Speaker:They're not checking.
Speaker:And then 22 guards from the 58th Ohio volunteer.
Speaker:You got the 70 paying passengers from New Orleans and you have the 85 crew members.
Speaker:That's a total of 2,127 when it can only hold.
Speaker:Three hundred and seventy six, that's 1800 people over the capacity of the ship and.
Speaker:I show you this picture that they take on April 26th.
Speaker:So they leave the night of April 24th.
Speaker:They make their way up the Mississippi.
Speaker:And on April 26th, they stop in Helena, Arkansas, where a photographer took
Speaker:a picture of the overcrowded vessel.
Speaker:And I show that.
Speaker:On the video.
Speaker:That's kind, that's like the famous one.
Speaker:They have it like all blown up.
Speaker:So if you go to the Sultana Disaster Museum in Marion, Arkansas, which is
Speaker:only like, what, 20 minutes from Memphis?
Speaker:Oh yeah.
Speaker:It's just across the bridge.
Speaker:It's might might be 15 minutes.
Speaker:So if you're in the Memphis area, definitely go visit.
Speaker:But they, they have it blown up.
Speaker:And what they point out is what you're gonna talk about is like
Speaker:how the smoke stacks look different and, and that's indicated by all the
Speaker:people being on one side of the ship.
Speaker:For this picture.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So everyone comes over to the landside 'cause the photographer is setting
Speaker:up there to take this photograph.
Speaker:Well, you have 1800 people over capacity all going to one side of a ship.
Speaker:And if you know anything about ships like Scott and I do, balance is everything.
Speaker:. And so it's gonna list
Speaker:and, and, and these and these river borne.
Speaker:Ships and boats and stuff like that, they don't have a deep draft.
Speaker:So it's, it's the center of gravity, which is what's really important on
Speaker:a ship, is much higher for these, these boats that are on the river.
Speaker:And so when you have all of these and you, I'll show the picture for
Speaker:the, for those watching the video, when you have all these, these men
Speaker:going to one side of the ship, that center of gravity is gonna start.
Speaker:Rocking the ship over towards where the picture is on the landside.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And like Scott said, riverboats not gonna have a high draft because it's shallower.
Speaker:The Mississippi gets very shallow in certain places, especially closer in
Speaker:towards land, towards different ports.
Speaker:And so it doesn't, it can't have a high draft, so center gravity is higher.
Speaker:The more decks you put on a steamship, the higher it gets.
Speaker:And when you bring people over, it starts to list so much so that the captain
Speaker:was worried it was going to to flip.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Capsize.
Speaker:And so.
Speaker:You can tell in the picture I show you one smoke stack is letting off
Speaker:smoke and the other is letting off.
Speaker:Nothing that lets you know that the boilers are unbalanced.
Speaker:There's water in one and there's not water in another, and so you're not
Speaker:having anything to burn, essentially.
Speaker:So no steam is coming out and you can, it's so evident in the picture.
Speaker:You can also see the listing.
Speaker:You can see where it's leaning into the water more and.
Speaker:They just get the picture as quick as they can and they get the men
Speaker:to move over to the other side.
Speaker:Now the ship is also like bowing in certain areas, and bowing is like the,
Speaker:the floors are bending down and so they're taking wooden planks and pushing
Speaker:up the floors of the, like the third, second deck, third dead fork, death
Speaker:to hold the people up so they know.
Speaker:They have more people than they should have.
Speaker:They should
Speaker:dump like half of 'em at Memphis.
Speaker:I know.
Speaker:So this happens on the 26th, this photograph is taken and
Speaker:Scott will show the photograph.
Speaker:You can even still see the antlers in the picture of the photograph.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It's super cool to see.
Speaker:And that's taken in Helena, Arkansas and that they're gonna
Speaker:arrive in Memphis at 7:00 PM.
Speaker:On the 26th and they're gonna unload 120 tons of sugar, which is gonna
Speaker:help, and then 200 men get off.
Speaker:So, whew.
Speaker:Those men really do help.
Speaker:And then she, then she's just gonna go a short distance up the
Speaker:river and take on some coal about 1:00 AM and then it's 2:00 AM.
Speaker:On April 27th, 1865, about seven miles north of Memphis,
Speaker:the boilers suddenly explode.
Speaker:It kills people instantly, and then all everyone else goes into the water.
Speaker:Yeah, and, and one of the things, and.
Speaker:I know a smidge about steam stuff because my first ship in the Navy
Speaker:was still a steam ship, right?
Speaker:The Navy has used Steam works well.
Speaker:Steam Power works very, very well.
Speaker:And so the Navy still has some steam ships out there.
Speaker:In my first, as the tarawa where actually where you and I met.
Speaker:And that was a steam ship.
Speaker:Now, I was not an engineer on that ship, so I didn't learn as much as others.
Speaker:But one of the things that you're looking for is balance across the boilers.
Speaker:You don't want to put a sudden drastic change on one
Speaker:boiler because think about it.
Speaker:All of a sudden you put a bunch of water in there.
Speaker:If there's all these men that are making the ship rock back and forth and making
Speaker:things out of balance, well, if one boiler is taking a heavy load, the other
Speaker:one is getting super hot, but it's not burning anything, and then all of a sudden
Speaker:if the water shifts over, that's gonna cause a sudden amount of water, heat, and
Speaker:steam that will all of a sudden expand.
Speaker:Think about heat, right?
Speaker:Heat expands and that can cause an already weakened or already.
Speaker:Recently fixed, quote unquote boiler to potentially explode.
Speaker:And that is most likely what happened with this because
Speaker:things were so out of balance.
Speaker:They were so heavy, the boilers just couldn't handle the load.
Speaker:They were so overstressed, and that is most likely one of the things that caused.
Speaker:The explosion.
Speaker:And so you have people who die instantly, but you have all of these weakened
Speaker:prisoners of war going into the water and all the wood is catching on fire.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And, and you gotta think about it too.
Speaker:It's still, it's April and the Mississippi will still get pretty cold.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:So it's still spring.
Speaker:And so it's not like they're falling into this warm, lukewarm water
Speaker:where they can just float to shore.
Speaker:I mean, it's, I don't, if it's not icy, it probably feels like that to these
Speaker:men who were already very, very sickly.
Speaker:If you've ever seen pictures of prisoners of war that left was it
Speaker:cahaba and what was the other one?
Speaker:Andersonville.
Speaker:Andersonville.
Speaker:I mean, they are emaciated beyond belief.
Speaker:It's, it's disturbing some of the, the pictures that are out there.
Speaker:So men like that falling into the water.
Speaker:Just literally don't have the strength to try and fight and swim their way to shore.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:They were so weakened.
Speaker:They ran outta strength.
Speaker:They cling, they, they would clinging to each other, but
Speaker:whole groups went down together.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:And so the, the Sultana is burning and they realized, people in the area start to
Speaker:realize that this is happening about two 30, about half hour after the explosion.
Speaker:Boats go out to try to rescue the survivors.
Speaker:So at the same time, dozens people have floated down river and they're
Speaker:beginning to float past Memphis.
Speaker:They're calling for help.
Speaker:And so you have ships going into the water to save people.
Speaker:But in the end, the casualties are about 1200.
Speaker:So 1200 people will die.
Speaker:And and then you're gonna have, it was like 2100, 1200 dies.
Speaker:And
Speaker:I, I wanna say like there's like another couple hundred that actually
Speaker:die, like after they get out mm-hmm.
Speaker:Of the river.
Speaker:Because the total initial reported deaths for this was around 1600.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So I think there's like 1200 that they never, like, probably never
Speaker:identified or just went down.
Speaker:And then there's more that even died after they even got to shore Again.
Speaker:Think about it.
Speaker:All these men that are just sick can barely, barely walk and move, let alone
Speaker:try to swim out of an icy cold river.
Speaker:And so that 1600 number is what puts it above the Titanic and above.
Speaker:The USS Arizona.
Speaker:And then I think the 1200, if I remember correctly is what actually the book
Speaker:author, and we'll mention him here in just a little bit that we met at the
Speaker:museum mentioned, died, kind of that, that night going down with the ship.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And so, like Scott said about this 1200 who went down with
Speaker:the ship, almost all of them.
Speaker:Were unidentified.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:Because they would strip themselves of their clothes because they're wearing
Speaker:these wool uniforms and it's pulling on water and they strip themselves of their
Speaker:clothes, and then they just don't have the strength to swim and they're freezing.
Speaker:And so when their bodies are found, there's nothing to identify them.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:And even if they did have their uniforms on them, very few put tags and things.
Speaker:So a lot of the men who were identified.
Speaker:Or like Scott said, they survived the initial explosion.
Speaker:They survived being pulled outta the water, yet they died subsequently in
Speaker:Memphis or other places later, but they were able to give their name.
Speaker:And so that's how a lot of the men who are identified, which is a
Speaker:small percentage were identified.
Speaker:We have a few men who wash ashore, and Ely is one of them.
Speaker:And that's the person we talk about with the author.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Lieutenant John Ely.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:From the Ohio.
Speaker:He had.
Speaker:A personal diary on him and his personal diary is what kind of gives you some
Speaker:insight to the life of a soldier?
Speaker:A life of a prisoner of war.
Speaker:And they identified him by his name and, and who he was.
Speaker:And so other soldiers sometimes had name tags of their uniforms
Speaker:sewn into their uniforms.
Speaker:That was another way, but again.
Speaker:Ely was pulled out of the water like a week later.
Speaker:So you can imagine the body is very hard to identify a week after
Speaker:it's been in the water for so long.
Speaker:So those other distinguishing factors like a diary or a tag would be
Speaker:what they used at at the Civil War.
Speaker:There's no dog tags at this time.
Speaker:There was no dog tags right during the Civil War.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:They don't have anything like that
Speaker:to use.
Speaker:Now this happened on the evening of April 26th, 1865.
Speaker:So
Speaker:it's the early morning of the 27th, 2:00 AM early, early
Speaker:morning of the 27th.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:And then later that day or the next day, what kind of world famous
Speaker:event happened that overshadowed what would've made headlines here?
Speaker:So John Wilkes Booth is killed.
Speaker:He's caught, and he's killed
Speaker:he's, he's shot and he on the Garrett Farm.
Speaker:On the Garrett Farm.
Speaker:And so that headline makes April
Speaker:26th.
Speaker:April 26th.
Speaker:So the day before.
Speaker:So it actually happened the day before.
Speaker:So when the news finally got out, it was, he was already the headline of
Speaker:the news and that dominated everything.
Speaker:And so this kind of got buried.
Speaker:Well below the death of John Wilkes Booth.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:'cause that if you can, we talked about John Wilkes booth four and the manhunt.
Speaker:So the two week manhunt that's going on to catch him, it's
Speaker:not quite two weeks, but yeah,
Speaker:there's a huge reward out on him.
Speaker:And so they caught him, they killed him, and now they're doing like the
Speaker:autopsy and, and everything surrounding how they caught him in trial.
Speaker:That's kitten.
Speaker:That's getting all the headlines.
Speaker:So the Sultana gets so buried and.
Speaker:Because all of these men were, again, unidentified.
Speaker:Their families didn't even know if they had survived.
Speaker:Their families didn't even know to look for them.
Speaker:So it was one of those things that it just gets so lost in history.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That that's why.
Speaker:Memphis has the second most unidentified civil war graves of any other place in
Speaker:the United States because of the Sultana.
Speaker:And these men still haven't been identified.
Speaker:These families never knew what happened to their sons, and they
Speaker:thought maybe they died in battle.
Speaker:They had no idea they were on this Sultana, no idea they were making it home.
Speaker:No idea.
Speaker:They almost got home.
Speaker:And Ely is a great example of that because even writes in his diary,
Speaker:will Next Christmas, find me at home?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:With my friends and family, right?
Speaker:And no, like all of these men who survived a prisoner of war camp couldn't
Speaker:survive sailing up the Mississippi.
Speaker:Now obviously you, for those who listen to the to the podcast
Speaker:regularly, know that we like to go and visit these historic locations.
Speaker:That's typically the primary driver for what we do.
Speaker:Here.
Speaker:Basically everything that we cover on the show outside of interviews and movies
Speaker:and stuff like that, we've gone to a location, that historic location, so
Speaker:it's you can't really go to where the Sultana sank because the Mississippi
Speaker:has shifted its course over the years.
Speaker:But you can go to the Sultana Disaster Museum again.
Speaker:We, as we mentioned earlier, in Marion, Arkansas, and that
Speaker:they're actually just got a, a. A bunch of money donated to them.
Speaker:They're, they're moving to a much better, much nicer location.
Speaker:And I think it wasn't it as like Sean Aston the actor.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So, so he, I think he's either involved or helped donate some
Speaker:money or something like that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So he's big involved in the charity for the museum, so.
Speaker:So think Rudy, Rudy, think Lord of the Rings.
Speaker:He loves the story, he loves the His story.
Speaker:He, he likes the story of it.
Speaker:So think he was in Stranger Things.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:For, for our younger audience.
Speaker:He was the, he was the, not the stepdad, but like the boyfriend.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Who like sacrificed himself in season one or two.
Speaker:Spoiler alert.
Speaker:But so he actually I think helped invest mm-hmm.
Speaker:Or has been helping the Sultana Disaster Museum.
Speaker:And I think we're gonna try to go to their new opening.
Speaker:In April of 26.
Speaker:March, April of 26 is what they said?
Speaker:Yeah, I think it might be.
Speaker:They had pushed it back.
Speaker:It was supposed to be September, October 25, but they pushed it back to 26.
Speaker:But just so you know, the museum opened in . 2015, and it's because in 1982, they found
Speaker:remnants of the Sultana in a soybean farm.
Speaker:So I always stress this on the Mississippi and Mississippi has
Speaker:changed course and has changed course significantly since the Civil War.
Speaker:So much so that the area where the Sultana sank is now.
Speaker:All land and a farm.
Speaker:A soybean farm.
Speaker:So in this soybean farm, they found wood burn, wood remnants.
Speaker:And they found the boilers.
Speaker:They found remnants of the boilers.
Speaker:Oh.
Speaker:They
Speaker:actually, they, they found some of the boilers
Speaker:and they've dug.
Speaker:That's so cool.
Speaker:They dug, they dug it up.
Speaker:And so the.
Speaker:Museum opened in 2015 and it's a great little museum, but it can't house all of
Speaker:these bigger artifacts that they've found.
Speaker:They have a really great depiction of the ship.
Speaker:Yeah, like a model, so you can really see what the sultana looked like.
Speaker:They tell great stories.
Speaker:They have lists of men that perished.
Speaker:They have a lot of artifacts from those men including an
Speaker:alligator that was on board.
Speaker:It's actually, it's one of those things like, I think.
Speaker:It deserves the location, the new location that it's moving to, because
Speaker:it, they have so many artifacts there.
Speaker:And there were some survivors and there were people identified.
Speaker:So they have pictures of people who are on the Sultana because they did
Speaker:identify some, some who made it out.
Speaker:But it deserves this new location.
Speaker:'cause right now it's a, in a, in a pretty small little building, tucked around.
Speaker:But when we went there, there were still people coming and visiting.
Speaker:We met people, mm-hmm.
Speaker:A two gals that were.
Speaker:Driving up up to Michigan, stuff like that.
Speaker:And there, there's a fair amount of people that are still seeking this spot out.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And it's gonna be in a new state of the art permanent museum.
Speaker:They took the old gymnasium of the Marion high school and they
Speaker:re renovated it into the museum.
Speaker:So it's gonna have a great space.
Speaker:And again, it's only like maybe 15 minutes from Memphis.
Speaker:So if you want to drive that iconic.
Speaker:Memphis Bridge, right?
Speaker:If you're, if you're visiting the Memphis area and you wanna drive
Speaker:across the Mississippi, you can drive across that iconic Memphis Bridge
Speaker:and go and visit Marion Arkansas.
Speaker:This is a great little spot to go, do an afternoon visit.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:And if you wanna like learn more about the greatest maritime
Speaker:disaster in American history.
Speaker:This is waiting for you.
Speaker:It's, there's a lot of like historical markers to the Sultana.
Speaker:There's one in Memphis, of course, there's one in Vicksburg.
Speaker:We saw the one in Vicksburg.
Speaker:There's one in Ohio because a lot of the men were from the 115th Ohio.
Speaker:There's one in Knoxville, there's one in Michigan.
Speaker:So it's just honoring the men.
Speaker:A lot of these regiments represented, but in the aftermath there was
Speaker:a lot of lack of accountability.
Speaker:They tried, so you have to realize the captain of the Sultana died.
Speaker:He was last seen helping people to get off the ship.
Speaker:He was last seen trying to save as many survivors as he could so he
Speaker:could never be held accountable.
Speaker:He's.
Speaker:Killed in the disaster.
Speaker:When you talk about hatch, who worked up the scheme, he to avoid a court martial he
Speaker:acquits the military as quick as possible.
Speaker:He quits service, avoids course martial and goes into hiding.
Speaker:They tried to make a Captain Frederick speed.
Speaker:He was a union officer who sent the 1900 parole visitors to Vicksburg
Speaker:and that they tried to charge him.
Speaker:And then the judge advocate general overturned it because speed
Speaker:was at the parole camp all day.
Speaker:He was not personally involved.
Speaker:He was just sending the prisoners out saying, here, go on the ship.
Speaker:Go on the ship.
Speaker:And then they have a Captain, George Augustus Williams, he had
Speaker:placed men on board and was a Army officer, but the military refused
Speaker:to go after one of their own.
Speaker:So he was never held accountable either.
Speaker:And then you got Captain Mason of the Sultana.
Speaker:Like I said, he ultimately died.
Speaker:So in the end, no one was ever held responsible for this greatest
Speaker:deadliest maritime disaster in the United States history.
Speaker:And I think that also.
Speaker:Goes in line.
Speaker:'cause there was no public outcry to hold someone responsible because the
Speaker:public really didn't know about it.
Speaker:And so it's the end of the Civil War people who.
Speaker:To have no idea that their family members are even in a confederate prisoner of war
Speaker:camp, just figured that they had died, had no idea to even fight for justice
Speaker:for their, for their family member.
Speaker:So that's what makes this all the more sad.
Speaker:And then as a historian and people who love to tell history,
Speaker:their story was lost to history.
Speaker:And so that's what we find.
Speaker:So important to have to get out and tell this story.
Speaker:'cause it's so fascinating.
Speaker:It's so interesting.
Speaker:It's how this perfect storm comes together to create the greatest
Speaker:disaster that no one knows about.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And so we just want you guys to know about it.
Speaker:Find out more, visit the museum.
Speaker:And if you have any questions for us and you wanna know more about this, please
Speaker:leave a comment or something like that.
Speaker:Let us know if you knew about this.
Speaker:And, and what we can do today to honor the men of the Sultana and their lives
Speaker:and what they gave to this country.
Speaker:The Sultana disaster is still the largest maritime disaster in American history that
Speaker:almost no one knows about no one but you.
Speaker:You know that in April of 1865, this Steamboat left New Orleans
Speaker:and traveled north, picking up thousands of soldiers hoping to
Speaker:get home after the end of the war.
Speaker:You also know that not long after the Sultana left Memphis, the
Speaker:rocking of the ship overloaded the boilers causing them to explode.
Speaker:Sinking one of the fastest Steamboats on the river and claiming
Speaker:more lives than the Titanic.
Speaker:And our history lovers out there now have that dinnertime.
Speaker:Trivia question, if the Civil War era topic ever comes up,
Speaker:why isn't the Sultana disaster?
Speaker:Better known?
Speaker:It was overshadowed by the news of the death of John Wilkes Booth.
Speaker:News that swept the globe and buried this Sultana disaster in the
Speaker:murky depths of the Mississippi.
Speaker:If you wanna experience this history firsthand and see artifacts from the
Speaker:Sultana, get to the Memphis area, drive that iconic Memphis Bridge
Speaker:across the Mississippi, and stop by the new and improved Sultana
Speaker:Disaster Museum in Marion, Arkansas.
Speaker:We'll talk to you next time.
Speaker:Thank you.
