August 11, 2025 • 37 mins
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
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:05):
I want you to walk back in time withme and imagine we are deckhand on a
Mississippi Steamboat in the 1860s.
April, 1865.
The Mississippi Air was thick, not justwith humidity, but with the thousands of
union soldiers crammed onto the Sultana.
As a deckhand, I'd seen our steamerfull, but this was different.
(00:28):
They were fresh from Confederateprisons, eager for home, their hope.
Palpable.
I was in the engine room feeling theboiler's familiar thrombin when it hit,
not a shutter, but a sudden deafeningroar, a blinding flash, scalding steam,
and debris tore through the deck.
Above the sound was a metallicshriek, followed by the screams.
(00:52):
The ship lurched violently.
I scrambled out, chokingon smoke eyes stinging.
A ship was tearing apart her woodenhole, no match for the blast.
Orange flames raced across the decks wheremen had just been singing panic erupted.
Soldiers many two weak to swim, lept,or were thrown into the frigid water.
Screams for help for God,for mothers were everywhere.
(01:14):
Men disappeared into the churningwater swallowed by debris and flames.
The Mississippi usually sogentle, became a hungry monster.
That night, I grabbed a floatingcrate, my lungs, burning muscles
screaming from the cold water.
The strong current pulled usdownstream away from the burning wreck.
Looking back, the sultana was afiery inferno, a jagged burning
(01:38):
skeleton against the now orange sky.
The noise faded, replaced by thechilling cries of survivors in the water.
We drifted, numb and shivering watchingour world burn as we drifted away.
The sun rose later painting thesky with bright colors that felt
so at odds with the darkness below.
(02:05):
Welcome to talk with History.
I'm your host Scott here withmy wife and historian Jen.
Hello.
On this podcast, we give you insightsto our history inspired, bold travels
YouTube channel journey, and examinehistory through deeper conversations
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(02:25):
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(02:47):
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but dream big or don't dream at all.
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Right.
Alright Jen, so the Sultana disaster,this is something that some people,
(03:13):
a lot of people, especially,you know here in America right,
have probably may have heard of.
But I would say most folks don'tknow about, but this is the largest
American maritime disaster ever, period.
Yeah, I would say mostpeople don't know about it.
I would say when I bring up theSultana with most people, it's
(03:36):
really history buffs who might knowit, but most your average everyday
person have no idea where the averageeveryday person knows the Titanic.
Or they know about the USS Arizona.
But they do not know about the Sultana.
And so yes, this is the greatestmaritime disaster in American history
happened during the Civil War.
And and most people don't knowabout it 'cause it was overshadowed
(03:58):
by another major historical event.
Yep.
And that historical event is probablysomething everybody knows about as well.
So it's understandable why people don'tknow about this, but it's sad because.
These victims have been forgotten thenbecause of that and because they, they're
like literally forgotten because themost unknown Civil War soldiers the
(04:22):
second most is in Memphis, Tennessee.
And it's because of this disaster.
And so it's one of those things that it.
Could benefit from more research, itcould benefit from people digging in
and learning more about these men.
But unfortunately it's just sounknown that it just needs more
awareness to the average everydayperson and history in general.
(04:45):
Now, when you say it happenedduring the Civil War, it, I think it
technically happened like right afterthe Civil War was technically over,
like literally the war had just ended.
Yes.
And we're, I know we'regonna get into the details.
The war had just ended acouple thousand prisoners ish.
Are released from prisons down downsouth and are getting brought back north.
(05:08):
So tell us Yeah.
The surrounding events around this.
Yeah, so like you said, it happensin April, 1865, so it's this
big month of history, right?
So yes, the surrenderhappens in April of 1865.
Lincoln is assassinated.
Yeah.
April, 1865.
Yeah.
Appomattox was like April9th or something like that.
April 9th.
Yeah.
Then Lincoln then.
(05:29):
This happens April 27th, 1865.
So it's like this whole month isfilled with these big historic
events, and the first two are sohuge it overshadows this third one.
But yes, technically you're right, Scott.
It's, it's, I would saycivil war timeframe.
Yeah.
But not during this.
It's, it's the aftermath of the Civil War.
(05:50):
So like you talked about, it was a.The Sultana was a side wheel steamboat
on the Mississippi River, and whenwe talk about the Mississippi River,
it really is like the main highwayof this, of the country at the time.
railroads are really starting tofind themselves being very important
(06:10):
during this time, but the Mississippihas held its its importance.
Yeah.
Before the Civil War.
After the Civil War, and because thatis so important when Vicksburg falls,
it really is like the end of the CivilWar because now the union controls
the Mississippi and that is this vitalvein through the entire of America.
Yeah, and actually when I hadoriginally written my intro with
(06:31):
this kind of story there, I hadwritten it that the characters.
Mm-hmm.
Us were actually kind of didn't,didn't know what side they were on.
They just knew that business was busy.
Yeah.
Because the Mississippi wasimportant, whether you were in the
south, whether you're in the north.
Mm-hmm.
And most likely, I would guessa lot of these Steamboats were
probably operating within, Iwouldn't say with impunity 'cause it.
(06:52):
'cause it sounds like, they don'tcare what side they're on, but I would
imagine they were busy regardlessof who was controlling what port.
So commerce, right?
Yeah.
It's so important to trade and soit's vital to the north and the south.
It's vital to the economicsof the north and south.
That's why when the North finallycontrols it, they can control how much.
Supplies are getting to the south.
(07:13):
And so they're not letting that happen.
And the north is taking all the supplies.
So the people who are operating onthe Mississippi, yes, they're still
holding allegiances to one side orthe other, but they're still, overall,
their motivation is the dollar money.
And so much so the Sultana isknown as the fastest ship on the
Mississippi, and we talk about.
(07:35):
In the video why that is, it's, itjust has made the fastest voyage
from Cairo to new Orleans, andthat's how they measured that.
And so it gets to have the antlersbetween, its two smokestacks and that is
a symbol for everybody on the Mississippi,that if you wanna trade your goods or get
your goods to the major ports, new Orleansthis ship will get it there the fastest.
(07:58):
And it was really neat because.
We'll talk about the museum thatwe went to in Marion, Arkansas.
That is the Sultana Disaster Museum.
That's actually getting a newlocation, new, new, improved location.
One of the docents there, shetaught us about the antlers, which
I, we thought was really neat.
Mm-hmm.
And I believe like they even wouldrace, and I don't know if they were like
actually sitting side by side racing,but they were just like, who can make
the fastest trip up, up, and down?
(08:19):
And then, then they would get theseantlers because if you didn't know
that factor, you'd be like, whyare there these random antlers
strung between the smokestacks?
Mm-hmm.
So they're actually strungbetween the smokestacks.
And if you look, and for thosewatching the video, I'll put
up a picture of the Sultana.
You can actually see a pair of antlersstrung between the two smokestacks of
the Sultana indicating that they had.
(08:42):
That they were currently, theyhad won the recent fastest time
or whatever that was Right.
They're the Millennium Falcon of them.
Yeah.
So it's a side wheel Steamboatand like I talked to before on the
video and side, so Steamboats comein like three different variations.
You got the paddle wheel in the back,which is a lot what people think of when
they think of paddle wheels or, or, or.
(09:02):
It's wheel driven ships on theMississippi, but a side wheel, the
Sultana has a side wheel on each sideof the ship and not as big as a, as a
stern wheel would be split the side.
But the neat thing about a sidewheel is one wheel can move forward.
One wheel can move in reverse, and it canreally maneuvered the ship a lot more.
(09:23):
Easily to get it close to the sidesof the riverbank, which is what the
Mississippi is doing because it's pullinginto these ports right on the side.
And so it can really get closein to get loaded on and off.
And so the versatility of howyou can maneuver that ship
made a side wheel so much more
advantageous for Mississippi Travel.
(09:44):
And then you have an internal wheel.
So those are the three different kinds.
You have a stern wheel, you haveside wheels, internal wheel.
Internal wheel is inside the ship.
You don't really see it from the outside.
That one is not as used asmuch because it's dangerous.
If you ever have traveled on theMississippi, we, I have extensively
you get a lot of trees that will.
(10:04):
Wash off and tro down the Mississippi.
If it's pulled into a internal wheel,it really does damage inside the ship.
And so they reallydidn't use those as much.
But those are the three typesof wheeled boats, ships you
would see along the Mississippi.
But Sultana a side wheel now it's builtin 1863, so it's not a very old ship.
(10:24):
Oh, I didn't realize that when youthink about this, didn't realize that.
Yeah.
And it's really intended forthis lower Mississippi trade,
so it really has made its name.
Doing a regular route betweenSt. Louis and New Orleans, and
it has a crew capacity of 376.
Remember that because thisis gonna be its downfall.
Now it's first launched inJanuary of 1863 and like I said,
(10:48):
it's, it's about 260 feet long.
It's 42 feet wide, and two sidemounted paddle wheels driven by four.
Fire tube boilers.
So those boilers make a difference too.
So think tube boiler per wheel, per side.
And when we talk about the boilers,they're 18 feet long and they
contain 25 24 or five inch flutes.
(11:10):
They're kind of like, holdthe water and boil it.
And that's where you're getting the steamand that's how you're driving these ships.
So, think about.
How this is all working together.
'cause this is all gonna bethe downfall of this ship.
So what happens this, these events,like you said, the Civil War,
the surrender happens April 9th.
(11:32):
The Sultana finds itself in.
St. Louis.
On April 15th, right after thepresident's been assassinated.
That's right.
And it gets, and the captain,and we have Captain James Ka.
Cass Mason is just informed of theassassination of the president.
So he runs out and gets as manynewspapers as he can to get the
(11:52):
information down to New Orleans.
'cause he knows he's thefastest ship on the Mississippi.
They drape the ship inmorning cloth, which they buy.
Lots of black cloth and theydrape the ship in morning cloth.
'cause that's also like a symboland a message they can send as
they go down the Mississippi.
Think a lot of people stillaren't literate at this time.
That's why the antlers aresuch a symbol for everyone to
(12:14):
understand what that means.
Draping a ship in morning cloth is also agreat symbol for the nation to see along
this massive highway of America that.
Our president has been assassinated.
That's,
I mean, that's how they got the newsout, that that's, that's also part
of the reason, after Lincoln wasassassinated, that they, I think.
Probably a small part of the reasonwhy they took the long train route Yep.
(12:35):
To get him back, to Illinois wherehe was eventually interred was to
let the nation see and get the newsthat way, to believe that this is
something that actually happened.
Sure.
Because there's no television.
And the people wanna mourn as a nation.
And so the train route is sosignificant and so is this Mississippi?
Yep.
Water route.
So Captain Mason does his job.
(12:57):
I would say as a, as a, a leader onthe Mississippi, he is taking the news
from St. Louis down to New Orleans.
He leaves St. Louis, April13th, 1865, bound for.
New Orleans on the morning of April15th, he's tied up in Cairo when the
word reaches that Lincoln has been shot.
(13:18):
So it's the 15th when he hears theinformation in Cairo even though
he leaves from St. Louis on the13th, and that's when he gets an r
load of the newspapers from Cairoand Heads South to spend the news.
Now he hits Vicksburg first and inVicksburg, he talks to a Captain
Reuben Hatch, the chief quartermasterat Vicksburg with a proposal.
(13:39):
So they know union prisonersof war are gonna be released,
people are gonna be pardoned.
They're coming from Cahaba that is aconfederate prisoner of war camp in Selma.
And they're coming from Andersonvillethat's a very famous Confederate
prisoner of war camp in Atlanta, Georgia.
And they know that.
Those paroled soldiers are gonna behit in Vicksburg and they're gonna
(14:01):
wanna be going back home, back north.
And the US government would pay $2 and 75cents per enlisted man and $8 per officer.
So they come to an understanding.
Knowing Mason needs money, hatchsuggested that he could give him a
load of about a thousand prisoners.
Now, bear in mind it's gonna beloaded with almost double of that.
(14:22):
Yeah.
And and and they're onlysupposed to have like 360 ish.
Yes.
And only if Mason would agreeto give Hatch a kickback.
So he agrees to Hatch's off wherehe's like, yes, let's do this.
And then he leaves Burg.
Heading down to New Orleans.
So they have this plan in place, right?
Because Hatch knows the prisonersare gonna be coming to Vicksburg.
He'll hold them there.
(14:43):
He'll wait until the Sultana makesits way back up north after hitting
New Orleans with all the news.
And then they have this plan alreadyworked out, so they don't even have
to talk about it when they come back.
So this is already understood.
Before they even load on theprisoners and before they even hit
Vicksburg to get the prisoners.
So it's an understood agreement.
(15:04):
Yeah.
I don't think I realizedthat it had been that.
That's set up by, by the,the, the players, the ship's
captain and some other folks.
Yes.
So they leave Vicksburg, they'rethey're down in New Orleans.
They disperse all the newspapers.
They disperse the news, and theyleave New Orleans on April 21st,
and they have about 70 cabin anddeck passengers and some livestock.
(15:25):
So there's about.
70 paying passengers on board too.
So again, legal capacity, 37685, crew 70 paid passengers, and
so they have about 150 people.
As they hit Vicksburg to get loaded up.
(15:45):
Wow.
So, but what happens is about 10hours south of Vicksburg, before
they even hit Vicksburg, one oftheir four boilers springs a leak.
Oh.
So they already have a boiler.
Issue.
Okay.
Before they even get to Vicksburg.
So that's before later on whenthings start getting outta
outta whack as far as balance.
'cause there's too many people.
Yes.
So these say, think of theseboilers are already handicapped.
(16:09):
So it's when they getto Vicksburg that they.
Get a boiler repair, andit's just like a quick fix.
It's not a new boiler to replaceeverything they're taking and a boiler
is under mass amount of pressureand heat, and they're just repairing
this boiler, which they're gonnaput a lot of stress on this boiler.
So this is, this is the wholeissue by why, why this happens.
(16:32):
It wasn't like they had four great workingboilers as they're leaving Vicksburg.
They have three great workingboilers and one that's severely.
Incapacitated.
Well, and if you think about it and, andwe call this a Sultana disaster, right?
And we know from the intro that, that the,one of the, one of the boilers, if not
a couple explode, but they're putting,think, if you think about just total load
(16:54):
that this, the boilers are designed tohandle, which is less than 400 people.
Yeah.
And they end up with what,like over 2000 on board?
Yeah.
At, at the end of the day wheneveryone's loaded on board, it's 21, 27.
So they're putting like.
700% more
mm-hmm.
Than, stress and effort andall the stuff on these boilers.
(17:15):
So that's interesting aboutthe leak and like the repair.
Yeah.
So when you think about four boilers, andthey're supposed to have 376 people, each
boiler handles less than a hundred people.
When they load on 2,127, each boiler'sgonna handle over 500 people, right?
So, like you said, yeah, likethey're taxing these boilers
way outside of their capacity.
(17:36):
Plus you have one that'sjust been repaired.
So this is where the whole issue starts.
So they reach Vicksburg on the 23rd.
Yep.
And and they start to load people on.
And like I said, they get, they hadjust gotten all those release prisoners
from those two Confederate of prisonerof war camps, and they load on.
(17:56):
They believe that they'reloading on less than 1500.
In actuality, they load on1,950 paroled prisoners.
So like they had made thedeal for a thousand, right?
They double that 'cause they'rejust not paying attention.
They're not checking.
And then 22 guards fromthe 58th Ohio volunteer.
You got the 70 paying passengers from NewOrleans and you have the 85 crew members.
(18:20):
That's a total of 2,127when it can only hold.
Three hundred and seventy six, that's 1800people over the capacity of the ship and.
I show you this picture thatthey take on April 26th.
So they leave the night of April 24th.
(18:40):
They make their way up the Mississippi.
And on April 26th, they stop in Helena,Arkansas, where a photographer took
a picture of the overcrowded vessel.
And I show that.
On the video.
That's kind, that's like the famous one.
They have it like all blown up.
So if you go to the Sultana DisasterMuseum in Marion, Arkansas, which is
only like, what, 20 minutes from Memphis?
Oh yeah.
It's just across the bridge.
(19:01):
It's might might be 15 minutes.
So if you're in the Memphisarea, definitely go visit.
But they, they have it blown up.
And what they point out is whatyou're gonna talk about is like
how the smoke stacks look differentand, and that's indicated by all the
people being on one side of the ship.
For this picture.
Yeah.
So everyone comes over to the landside'cause the photographer is setting
up there to take this photograph.
(19:21):
Well, you have 1800 people over capacityall going to one side of a ship.
And if you know anything about ships likeScott and I do, balance is everything.
. And so it's gonna list
and, and, and these and these river borne.
Ships and boats and stuff likethat, they don't have a deep draft.
So it's, it's the center of gravity,which is what's really important on
(19:41):
a ship, is much higher for these,these boats that are on the river.
And so when you have all of theseand you, I'll show the picture for
the, for those watching the video,when you have all these, these men
going to one side of the ship, thatcenter of gravity is gonna start.
Rocking the ship over towards wherethe picture is on the landside.
Yeah.
And like Scott said, riverboats not gonnahave a high draft because it's shallower.
(20:02):
The Mississippi gets very shallow incertain places, especially closer in
towards land, towards different ports.
And so it doesn't, it can't have a highdraft, so center gravity is higher.
The more decks you put on asteamship, the higher it gets.
And when you bring people over, it startsto list so much so that the captain
was worried it was going to to flip.
(20:22):
Yeah.
Capsize.
And so.
You can tell in the picture I showyou one smoke stack is letting off
smoke and the other is letting off.
Nothing that lets you know thatthe boilers are unbalanced.
There's water in one and there's notwater in another, and so you're not
having anything to burn, essentially.
So no steam is coming out and youcan, it's so evident in the picture.
(20:43):
You can also see the listing.
You can see where it's leaninginto the water more and.
They just get the picture as quickas they can and they get the men
to move over to the other side.
Now the ship is also like bowing incertain areas, and bowing is like the,
the floors are bending down and sothey're taking wooden planks and pushing
up the floors of the, like the third,second deck, third dead fork, death
(21:06):
to hold the people up so they know.
They have more peoplethan they should have.
They should
dump like half of 'em at Memphis.
I know.
So this happens on the 26th,this photograph is taken and
Scott will show the photograph.
You can even still see the antlersin the picture of the photograph.
Yeah.
It's super cool to see.
And that's taken in Helena,Arkansas and that they're gonna
arrive in Memphis at 7:00 PM.
(21:27):
On the 26th and they're gonna unload120 tons of sugar, which is gonna
help, and then 200 men get off.
So, whew.
Those men really do help.
And then she, then she's justgonna go a short distance up the
river and take on some coal about1:00 AM and then it's 2:00 AM.
On April 27th, 1865, aboutseven miles north of Memphis,
(21:53):
the boilers suddenly explode.
It kills people instantly, and thenall everyone else goes into the water.
Yeah, and, and one of the things, and.
I know a smidge about steam stuffbecause my first ship in the Navy
was still a steam ship, right?
The Navy has used Steam works well.
(22:13):
Steam Power works very, very well.
And so the Navy still hassome steam ships out there.
In my first, as the tarawa whereactually where you and I met.
And that was a steam ship.
Now, I was not an engineer on that ship,so I didn't learn as much as others.
But one of the things that you're lookingfor is balance across the boilers.
You don't want to put asudden drastic change on one
boiler because think about it.
(22:35):
All of a sudden you put abunch of water in there.
If there's all these men that are makingthe ship rock back and forth and making
things out of balance, well, if oneboiler is taking a heavy load, the other
one is getting super hot, but it's notburning anything, and then all of a sudden
if the water shifts over, that's gonnacause a sudden amount of water, heat, and
steam that will all of a sudden expand.
(22:58):
Think about heat, right?
Heat expands and that can causean already weakened or already.
Recently fixed, quote unquoteboiler to potentially explode.
And that is most likely whathappened with this because
things were so out of balance.
They were so heavy, the boilersjust couldn't handle the load.
(23:18):
They were so overstressed, and that ismost likely one of the things that caused.
The explosion.
And so you have people who die instantly,but you have all of these weakened
prisoners of war going into the waterand all the wood is catching on fire.
Yeah.
And, and you gotta think about it too.
It's still, it's April and theMississippi will still get pretty cold.
(23:40):
Yes.
So it's still spring.
And so it's not like they're fallinginto this warm, lukewarm water
where they can just float to shore.
I mean, it's, I don't, if it's not icy,it probably feels like that to these
men who were already very, very sickly.
If you've ever seen pictures ofprisoners of war that left was it
cahaba and what was the other one?
Andersonville.
Andersonville.
(24:01):
I mean, they are emaciated beyond belief.
It's, it's disturbing some of the,the pictures that are out there.
So men like that falling into the water.
Just literally don't have the strength totry and fight and swim their way to shore.
Yeah.
They were so weakened.
They ran outta strength.
They cling, they, they wouldclinging to each other, but
whole groups went down together.
(24:22):
Yep.
And so the, the Sultana is burning andthey realized, people in the area start to
realize that this is happening about two30, about half hour after the explosion.
Boats go out to try torescue the survivors.
So at the same time, dozens peoplehave floated down river and they're
beginning to float past Memphis.
(24:42):
They're calling for help.
And so you have ships goinginto the water to save people.
But in the end, thecasualties are about 1200.
So 1200 people will die.
And and then you're gonna have,it was like 2100, 1200 dies.
And
I, I wanna say like there's likeanother couple hundred that actually
die, like after they get out mm-hmm.
(25:03):
Of the river.
Because the total initial reporteddeaths for this was around 1600.
Yeah.
So I think there's like 1200 thatthey never, like, probably never
identified or just went down.
And then there's more that even diedafter they even got to shore Again.
Think about it.
All these men that are just sick canbarely, barely walk and move, let alone
try to swim out of an icy cold river.
(25:25):
And so that 1600 number is whatputs it above the Titanic and above.
The USS Arizona.
And then I think the 1200, if I remembercorrectly is what actually the book
author, and we'll mention him here injust a little bit that we met at the
museum mentioned, died, kind of that,that night going down with the ship.
Yes.
And so, like Scott said aboutthis 1200 who went down with
(25:47):
the ship, almost all of them.
Were unidentified.
Yep.
Because they would strip themselves oftheir clothes because they're wearing
these wool uniforms and it's pulling onwater and they strip themselves of their
clothes, and then they just don't havethe strength to swim and they're freezing.
And so when their bodies are found,there's nothing to identify them.
(26:07):
Yep.
And even if they did have their uniformson them, very few put tags and things.
So a lot of the men who were identified.
Or like Scott said, theysurvived the initial explosion.
They survived being pulled outta thewater, yet they died subsequently in
Memphis or other places later, butthey were able to give their name.
And so that's how a lot of themen who are identified, which is a
(26:31):
small percentage were identified.
We have a few men who washashore, and Ely is one of them.
And that's the person wetalk about with the author.
Yeah.
Lieutenant John Ely.
Mm-hmm.
From the Ohio.
He had.
A personal diary on him and his personaldiary is what kind of gives you some
insight to the life of a soldier?
(26:53):
A life of a prisoner of war.
And they identified him byhis name and, and who he was.
And so other soldiers sometimeshad name tags of their uniforms
sewn into their uniforms.
That was another way, but again.
Ely was pulled out of thewater like a week later.
So you can imagine the body isvery hard to identify a week after
(27:16):
it's been in the water for so long.
So those other distinguishing factorslike a diary or a tag would be
what they used at at the Civil War.
There's no dog tags at this time.
There was no dog tagsright during the Civil War.
So.
They don't have anything like that
to use.
Now this happened on theevening of April 26th, 1865.
(27:37):
So
it's the early morning of the27th, 2:00 AM early, early
morning of the 27th.
Mm-hmm.
And then later that day or thenext day, what kind of world famous
event happened that overshadowedwhat would've made headlines here?
So John Wilkes Booth is killed.
He's caught, and he's killed
he's, he's shot and heon the Garrett Farm.
(27:58):
On the Garrett Farm.
And so that headline makes April
26th.
April 26th.
So the day before.
So it actually happened the day before.
So when the news finally got out, itwas, he was already the headline of
the news and that dominated everything.
And so this kind of got buried.
Well below the death of John Wilkes Booth.
Yeah.
'cause that if you can, we talked aboutJohn Wilkes booth four and the manhunt.
(28:19):
So the two week manhunt that'sgoing on to catch him, it's
not quite two weeks, but yeah,
there's a huge reward out on him.
And so they caught him, they killedhim, and now they're doing like the
autopsy and, and everything surroundinghow they caught him in trial.
That's kitten.
That's getting all the headlines.
So the Sultana gets so buried and.
Because all of these menwere, again, unidentified.
(28:42):
Their families didn't evenknow if they had survived.
Their families didn't evenknow to look for them.
So it was one of those things thatit just gets so lost in history.
Yeah.
That that's why.
Memphis has the second most unidentifiedcivil war graves of any other place in
the United States because of the Sultana.
(29:03):
And these men stillhaven't been identified.
These families never knew whathappened to their sons, and they
thought maybe they died in battle.
They had no idea they were on thisSultana, no idea they were making it home.
No idea.
They almost got home.
And Ely is a great example of thatbecause even writes in his diary,
will Next Christmas, find me at home?
(29:24):
Yeah.
With my friends and family, right?
And no, like all of these men whosurvived a prisoner of war camp couldn't
survive sailing up the Mississippi.
Now obviously you, for thosewho listen to the to the podcast
regularly, know that we like to goand visit these historic locations.
That's typically the primarydriver for what we do.
Here.
Basically everything that we cover onthe show outside of interviews and movies
(29:46):
and stuff like that, we've gone to alocation, that historic location, so
it's you can't really go to where theSultana sank because the Mississippi
has shifted its course over the years.
But you can go to the SultanaDisaster Museum again.
We, as we mentioned earlier,in Marion, Arkansas, and that
they're actually just got a, a.A bunch of money donated to them.
(30:07):
They're, they're moving to amuch better, much nicer location.
And I think it wasn't it aslike Sean Aston the actor.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, so he, I think he's eitherinvolved or helped donate some
money or something like that.
Yeah.
So he's big involved in thecharity for the museum, so.
So think Rudy, Rudy,think Lord of the Rings.
He loves the story, heloves the His story.
He, he likes the story of it.
(30:28):
So think he was in Stranger Things.
Yes.
For, for our younger audience.
He was the, he was the, not thestepdad, but like the boyfriend.
Yeah.
Who like sacrificed himselfin season one or two.
Spoiler alert.
But so he actually I thinkhelped invest mm-hmm.
Or has been helping theSultana Disaster Museum.
And I think we're gonna tryto go to their new opening.
In April of 26.
(30:48):
March, April of 26 is what they said?
Yeah, I think it might be.
They had pushed it back.
It was supposed to be September, October25, but they pushed it back to 26.
But just so you know, the museum opened in. 2015, and it's because in 1982, they found
remnants of the Sultana in a soybean farm.
(31:09):
So I always stress this on theMississippi and Mississippi has
changed course and has changed coursesignificantly since the Civil War.
So much so that the areawhere the Sultana sank is now.
All land and a farm.
A soybean farm.
So in this soybean farm, theyfound wood burn, wood remnants.
And they found the boilers.
(31:30):
They found remnants of the boilers.
Oh.
They
actually, they, theyfound some of the boilers
and they've dug.
That's so cool.
They dug, they dug it up.
And so the.
Museum opened in 2015 and it's a greatlittle museum, but it can't house all of
these bigger artifacts that they've found.
They have a really greatdepiction of the ship.
Yeah, like a model, so you can reallysee what the sultana looked like.
They tell great stories.
(31:51):
They have lists of men that perished.
They have a lot of artifactsfrom those men including an
alligator that was on board.
It's actually, it's one ofthose things like, I think.
It deserves the location, the newlocation that it's moving to, because
it, they have so many artifacts there.
And there were some survivorsand there were people identified.
So they have pictures of people whoare on the Sultana because they did
(32:14):
identify some, some who made it out.
But it deserves this new location.
'cause right now it's a, in a, in a prettysmall little building, tucked around.
But when we went there, there werestill people coming and visiting.
We met people, mm-hmm.
A two gals that were.
Driving up up toMichigan, stuff like that.
And there, there's a fair amount of peoplethat are still seeking this spot out.
Yeah.
And it's gonna be in a new stateof the art permanent museum.
(32:37):
They took the old gymnasium ofthe Marion high school and they
re renovated it into the museum.
So it's gonna have a great space.
And again, it's only likemaybe 15 minutes from Memphis.
So if you want to drive that iconic.
Memphis Bridge, right?
If you're, if you're visiting theMemphis area and you wanna drive
across the Mississippi, you can driveacross that iconic Memphis Bridge
(32:58):
and go and visit Marion Arkansas.
This is a great little spotto go, do an afternoon visit.
Absolutely.
And if you wanna like learnmore about the greatest maritime
disaster in American history.
This is waiting for you.
It's, there's a lot of likehistorical markers to the Sultana.
There's one in Memphis, ofcourse, there's one in Vicksburg.
We saw the one in Vicksburg.
There's one in Ohio because a lotof the men were from the 115th Ohio.
(33:22):
There's one in Knoxville,there's one in Michigan.
So it's just honoring the men.
A lot of these regiments represented,but in the aftermath there was
a lot of lack of accountability.
They tried, so you have to realizethe captain of the Sultana died.
He was last seen helpingpeople to get off the ship.
(33:44):
He was last seen trying to save asmany survivors as he could so he
could never be held accountable.
He's.
Killed in the disaster.
When you talk about hatch, who worked upthe scheme, he to avoid a court martial he
acquits the military as quick as possible.
He quits service, avoids coursemartial and goes into hiding.
They tried to make aCaptain Frederick speed.
(34:06):
He was a union officer who sent the1900 parole visitors to Vicksburg
and that they tried to charge him.
And then the judge advocategeneral overturned it because speed
was at the parole camp all day.
He was not personally involved.
He was just sending the prisonersout saying, here, go on the ship.
Go on the ship.
And then they have a Captain,George Augustus Williams, he had
placed men on board and was a Armyofficer, but the military refused
(34:29):
to go after one of their own.
So he was never held accountable either.
And then you got CaptainMason of the Sultana.
Like I said, he ultimately died.
So in the end, no one was everheld responsible for this greatest
deadliest maritime disasterin the United States history.
And I think that also.
Goes in line.
'cause there was no public outcry tohold someone responsible because the
(34:50):
public really didn't know about it.
And so it's the end ofthe Civil War people who.
To have no idea that their family membersare even in a confederate prisoner of war
camp, just figured that they had died,had no idea to even fight for justice
for their, for their family member.
So that's what makesthis all the more sad.
(35:12):
And then as a historian andpeople who love to tell history,
their story was lost to history.
And so that's what we find.
So important to have to getout and tell this story.
'cause it's so fascinating.
It's so interesting.
It's how this perfect storm comestogether to create the greatest
disaster that no one knows about.
Yeah.
And so we just want youguys to know about it.
(35:33):
Find out more, visit the museum.
And if you have any questions for us andyou wanna know more about this, please
leave a comment or something like that.
Let us know if you knew about this.
And, and what we can do today to honorthe men of the Sultana and their lives
and what they gave to this country.
(35:55):
The Sultana disaster is still the largestmaritime disaster in American history that
almost no one knows about no one but you.
You know that in April of 1865,this Steamboat left New Orleans
and traveled north, picking upthousands of soldiers hoping to
get home after the end of the war.
You also know that not long afterthe Sultana left Memphis, the
(36:18):
rocking of the ship overloaded theboilers causing them to explode.
Sinking one of the fastestSteamboats on the river and claiming
more lives than the Titanic.
And our history lovers outthere now have that dinnertime.
Trivia question, if the CivilWar era topic ever comes up,
why isn't the Sultana disaster?
Better known?
(36:39):
It was overshadowed by the newsof the death of John Wilkes Booth.
News that swept the globe andburied this Sultana disaster in the
murky depths of the Mississippi.
If you wanna experience this historyfirsthand and see artifacts from the
Sultana, get to the Memphis area,drive that iconic Memphis Bridge
across the Mississippi, and stopby the new and improved Sultana
(37:02):
Disaster Museum in Marion, Arkansas.
We'll talk to you next time.
Thank you.
I want you to walk back in time withme and imagine we are deckhand on a
Mississippi Steamboat in the 1860s.
April, 1865.
The Mississippi Air was thick, not justwith humidity, but with the thousands of
union soldiers crammed onto the Sultana.
As a deckhand, I'd seen our steamerfull, but this was different.
(00:28):
They were fresh from Confederateprisons, eager for home, their hope.
Palpable.
I was in the engine room feeling theboiler's familiar thrombin when it hit,
not a shutter, but a sudden deafeningroar, a blinding flash, scalding steam,
and debris tore through the deck.
Above the sound was a metallicshriek, followed by the screams.
(00:52):
The ship lurched violently.
I scrambled out, chokingon smoke eyes stinging.
A ship was tearing apart her woodenhole, no match for the blast.
Orange flames raced across the decks wheremen had just been singing panic erupted.
Soldiers many two weak to swim, lept,or were thrown into the frigid water.
Screams for help for God,for mothers were everywhere.
(01:14):
Men disappeared into the churningwater swallowed by debris and flames.
The Mississippi usually sogentle, became a hungry monster.
That night, I grabbed a floatingcrate, my lungs, burning muscles
screaming from the cold water.
The strong current pulled usdownstream away from the burning wreck.
Looking back, the sultana was afiery inferno, a jagged burning
(01:38):
skeleton against the now orange sky.
The noise faded, replaced by thechilling cries of survivors in the water.
We drifted, numb and shivering watchingour world burn as we drifted away.
The sun rose later painting thesky with bright colors that felt
so at odds with the darkness below.
(02:05):
Welcome to talk with History.
I'm your host Scott here withmy wife and historian Jen.
Hello.
On this podcast, we give you insightsto our history inspired, bold travels
YouTube channel journey, and examinehistory through deeper conversations
with the curious, the explorers,and the history lovers out there.
Now before we jump in, I do wanna saythank you to a couple folks who've
(02:25):
left stuff some five star reviews.
Thank you to the folks whoare leaving us top reviews.
So on Spotify and, andon an Apple podcast.
If you haven't and you're listening andyou enjoy these, these podcasts please
leave, leave us those, those star reviews.
You don't even have to writeanything, you just drop us five stars.
And that's it.
If you do wanna write us something,we will read that on the next show
(02:47):
when we, when we record that show.
So thank you.
Those who've been doing that,and we encourage you guys to,
to leave us some more of those.
'cause we do have to try andcatch the history channel.
Yeah.
We're working on it.
We're only a few million followersand audience members behind.
Yeah.
So,
but dream big or don't dream at all.
That's right.
Right.
Alright Jen, so the Sultana disaster,this is something that some people,
(03:13):
a lot of people, especially,you know here in America right,
have probably may have heard of.
But I would say most folks don'tknow about, but this is the largest
American maritime disaster ever, period.
Yeah, I would say mostpeople don't know about it.
I would say when I bring up theSultana with most people, it's
(03:36):
really history buffs who might knowit, but most your average everyday
person have no idea where the averageeveryday person knows the Titanic.
Or they know about the USS Arizona.
But they do not know about the Sultana.
And so yes, this is the greatestmaritime disaster in American history
happened during the Civil War.
And and most people don't knowabout it 'cause it was overshadowed
(03:58):
by another major historical event.
Yep.
And that historical event is probablysomething everybody knows about as well.
So it's understandable why people don'tknow about this, but it's sad because.
These victims have been forgotten thenbecause of that and because they, they're
like literally forgotten because themost unknown Civil War soldiers the
(04:22):
second most is in Memphis, Tennessee.
And it's because of this disaster.
And so it's one of those things that it.
Could benefit from more research, itcould benefit from people digging in
and learning more about these men.
But unfortunately it's just sounknown that it just needs more
awareness to the average everydayperson and history in general.
(04:45):
Now, when you say it happenedduring the Civil War, it, I think it
technically happened like right afterthe Civil War was technically over,
like literally the war had just ended.
Yes.
And we're, I know we'regonna get into the details.
The war had just ended acouple thousand prisoners ish.
Are released from prisons down downsouth and are getting brought back north.
(05:08):
So tell us Yeah.
The surrounding events around this.
Yeah, so like you said, it happensin April, 1865, so it's this
big month of history, right?
So yes, the surrenderhappens in April of 1865.
Lincoln is assassinated.
Yeah.
April, 1865.
Yeah.
Appomattox was like April9th or something like that.
April 9th.
Yeah.
Then Lincoln then.
(05:29):
This happens April 27th, 1865.
So it's like this whole month isfilled with these big historic
events, and the first two are sohuge it overshadows this third one.
But yes, technically you're right, Scott.
It's, it's, I would saycivil war timeframe.
Yeah.
But not during this.
It's, it's the aftermath of the Civil War.
(05:50):
So like you talked about, it was a.The Sultana was a side wheel steamboat
on the Mississippi River, and whenwe talk about the Mississippi River,
it really is like the main highwayof this, of the country at the time.
railroads are really starting tofind themselves being very important
(06:10):
during this time, but the Mississippihas held its its importance.
Yeah.
Before the Civil War.
After the Civil War, and because thatis so important when Vicksburg falls,
it really is like the end of the CivilWar because now the union controls
the Mississippi and that is this vitalvein through the entire of America.
Yeah, and actually when I hadoriginally written my intro with
(06:31):
this kind of story there, I hadwritten it that the characters.
Mm-hmm.
Us were actually kind of didn't,didn't know what side they were on.
They just knew that business was busy.
Yeah.
Because the Mississippi wasimportant, whether you were in the
south, whether you're in the north.
Mm-hmm.
And most likely, I would guessa lot of these Steamboats were
probably operating within, Iwouldn't say with impunity 'cause it.
(06:52):
'cause it sounds like, they don'tcare what side they're on, but I would
imagine they were busy regardlessof who was controlling what port.
So commerce, right?
Yeah.
It's so important to trade and soit's vital to the north and the south.
It's vital to the economicsof the north and south.
That's why when the North finallycontrols it, they can control how much.
Supplies are getting to the south.
(07:13):
And so they're not letting that happen.
And the north is taking all the supplies.
So the people who are operating onthe Mississippi, yes, they're still
holding allegiances to one side orthe other, but they're still, overall,
their motivation is the dollar money.
And so much so the Sultana isknown as the fastest ship on the
Mississippi, and we talk about.
(07:35):
In the video why that is, it's, itjust has made the fastest voyage
from Cairo to new Orleans, andthat's how they measured that.
And so it gets to have the antlersbetween, its two smokestacks and that is
a symbol for everybody on the Mississippi,that if you wanna trade your goods or get
your goods to the major ports, new Orleansthis ship will get it there the fastest.
(07:58):
And it was really neat because.
We'll talk about the museum thatwe went to in Marion, Arkansas.
That is the Sultana Disaster Museum.
That's actually getting a newlocation, new, new, improved location.
One of the docents there, shetaught us about the antlers, which
I, we thought was really neat.
Mm-hmm.
And I believe like they even wouldrace, and I don't know if they were like
actually sitting side by side racing,but they were just like, who can make
the fastest trip up, up, and down?
(08:19):
And then, then they would get theseantlers because if you didn't know
that factor, you'd be like, whyare there these random antlers
strung between the smokestacks?
Mm-hmm.
So they're actually strungbetween the smokestacks.
And if you look, and for thosewatching the video, I'll put
up a picture of the Sultana.
You can actually see a pair of antlersstrung between the two smokestacks of
the Sultana indicating that they had.
(08:42):
That they were currently, theyhad won the recent fastest time
or whatever that was Right.
They're the Millennium Falcon of them.
Yeah.
So it's a side wheel Steamboatand like I talked to before on the
video and side, so Steamboats comein like three different variations.
You got the paddle wheel in the back,which is a lot what people think of when
they think of paddle wheels or, or, or.
(09:02):
It's wheel driven ships on theMississippi, but a side wheel, the
Sultana has a side wheel on each sideof the ship and not as big as a, as a
stern wheel would be split the side.
But the neat thing about a sidewheel is one wheel can move forward.
One wheel can move in reverse, and it canreally maneuvered the ship a lot more.
(09:23):
Easily to get it close to the sidesof the riverbank, which is what the
Mississippi is doing because it's pullinginto these ports right on the side.
And so it can really get closein to get loaded on and off.
And so the versatility of howyou can maneuver that ship
made a side wheel so much more
advantageous for Mississippi Travel.
(09:44):
And then you have an internal wheel.
So those are the three different kinds.
You have a stern wheel, you haveside wheels, internal wheel.
Internal wheel is inside the ship.
You don't really see it from the outside.
That one is not as used asmuch because it's dangerous.
If you ever have traveled on theMississippi, we, I have extensively
you get a lot of trees that will.
(10:04):
Wash off and tro down the Mississippi.
If it's pulled into a internal wheel,it really does damage inside the ship.
And so they reallydidn't use those as much.
But those are the three typesof wheeled boats, ships you
would see along the Mississippi.
But Sultana a side wheel now it's builtin 1863, so it's not a very old ship.
(10:24):
Oh, I didn't realize that when youthink about this, didn't realize that.
Yeah.
And it's really intended forthis lower Mississippi trade,
so it really has made its name.
Doing a regular route betweenSt. Louis and New Orleans, and
it has a crew capacity of 376.
Remember that because thisis gonna be its downfall.
Now it's first launched inJanuary of 1863 and like I said,
(10:48):
it's, it's about 260 feet long.
It's 42 feet wide, and two sidemounted paddle wheels driven by four.
Fire tube boilers.
So those boilers make a difference too.
So think tube boiler per wheel, per side.
And when we talk about the boilers,they're 18 feet long and they
contain 25 24 or five inch flutes.
(11:10):
They're kind of like, holdthe water and boil it.
And that's where you're getting the steamand that's how you're driving these ships.
So, think about.
How this is all working together.
'cause this is all gonna bethe downfall of this ship.
So what happens this, these events,like you said, the Civil War,
the surrender happens April 9th.
(11:32):
The Sultana finds itself in.
St. Louis.
On April 15th, right after thepresident's been assassinated.
That's right.
And it gets, and the captain,and we have Captain James Ka.
Cass Mason is just informed of theassassination of the president.
So he runs out and gets as manynewspapers as he can to get the
(11:52):
information down to New Orleans.
'cause he knows he's thefastest ship on the Mississippi.
They drape the ship inmorning cloth, which they buy.
Lots of black cloth and theydrape the ship in morning cloth.
'cause that's also like a symboland a message they can send as
they go down the Mississippi.
Think a lot of people stillaren't literate at this time.
That's why the antlers aresuch a symbol for everyone to
(12:14):
understand what that means.
Draping a ship in morning cloth is also agreat symbol for the nation to see along
this massive highway of America that.
Our president has been assassinated.
That's,
I mean, that's how they got the newsout, that that's, that's also part
of the reason, after Lincoln wasassassinated, that they, I think.
Probably a small part of the reasonwhy they took the long train route Yep.
(12:35):
To get him back, to Illinois wherehe was eventually interred was to
let the nation see and get the newsthat way, to believe that this is
something that actually happened.
Sure.
Because there's no television.
And the people wanna mourn as a nation.
And so the train route is sosignificant and so is this Mississippi?
Yep.
Water route.
So Captain Mason does his job.
(12:57):
I would say as a, as a, a leader onthe Mississippi, he is taking the news
from St. Louis down to New Orleans.
He leaves St. Louis, April13th, 1865, bound for.
New Orleans on the morning of April15th, he's tied up in Cairo when the
word reaches that Lincoln has been shot.
(13:18):
So it's the 15th when he hears theinformation in Cairo even though
he leaves from St. Louis on the13th, and that's when he gets an r
load of the newspapers from Cairoand Heads South to spend the news.
Now he hits Vicksburg first and inVicksburg, he talks to a Captain
Reuben Hatch, the chief quartermasterat Vicksburg with a proposal.
(13:39):
So they know union prisonersof war are gonna be released,
people are gonna be pardoned.
They're coming from Cahaba that is aconfederate prisoner of war camp in Selma.
And they're coming from Andersonvillethat's a very famous Confederate
prisoner of war camp in Atlanta, Georgia.
And they know that.
Those paroled soldiers are gonna behit in Vicksburg and they're gonna
(14:01):
wanna be going back home, back north.
And the US government would pay $2 and 75cents per enlisted man and $8 per officer.
So they come to an understanding.
Knowing Mason needs money, hatchsuggested that he could give him a
load of about a thousand prisoners.
Now, bear in mind it's gonna beloaded with almost double of that.
(14:22):
Yeah.
And and and they're onlysupposed to have like 360 ish.
Yes.
And only if Mason would agreeto give Hatch a kickback.
So he agrees to Hatch's off wherehe's like, yes, let's do this.
And then he leaves Burg.
Heading down to New Orleans.
So they have this plan in place, right?
Because Hatch knows the prisonersare gonna be coming to Vicksburg.
He'll hold them there.
(14:43):
He'll wait until the Sultana makesits way back up north after hitting
New Orleans with all the news.
And then they have this plan alreadyworked out, so they don't even have
to talk about it when they come back.
So this is already understood.
Before they even load on theprisoners and before they even hit
Vicksburg to get the prisoners.
So it's an understood agreement.
(15:04):
Yeah.
I don't think I realizedthat it had been that.
That's set up by, by the,the, the players, the ship's
captain and some other folks.
Yes.
So they leave Vicksburg, they'rethey're down in New Orleans.
They disperse all the newspapers.
They disperse the news, and theyleave New Orleans on April 21st,
and they have about 70 cabin anddeck passengers and some livestock.
(15:25):
So there's about.
70 paying passengers on board too.
So again, legal capacity, 37685, crew 70 paid passengers, and
so they have about 150 people.
As they hit Vicksburg to get loaded up.
(15:45):
Wow.
So, but what happens is about 10hours south of Vicksburg, before
they even hit Vicksburg, one oftheir four boilers springs a leak.
Oh.
So they already have a boiler.
Issue.
Okay.
Before they even get to Vicksburg.
So that's before later on whenthings start getting outta
outta whack as far as balance.
'cause there's too many people.
Yes.
So these say, think of theseboilers are already handicapped.
(16:09):
So it's when they getto Vicksburg that they.
Get a boiler repair, andit's just like a quick fix.
It's not a new boiler to replaceeverything they're taking and a boiler
is under mass amount of pressureand heat, and they're just repairing
this boiler, which they're gonnaput a lot of stress on this boiler.
So this is, this is the wholeissue by why, why this happens.
(16:32):
It wasn't like they had four great workingboilers as they're leaving Vicksburg.
They have three great workingboilers and one that's severely.
Incapacitated.
Well, and if you think about it and, andwe call this a Sultana disaster, right?
And we know from the intro that, that the,one of the, one of the boilers, if not
a couple explode, but they're putting,think, if you think about just total load
(16:54):
that this, the boilers are designed tohandle, which is less than 400 people.
Yeah.
And they end up with what,like over 2000 on board?
Yeah.
At, at the end of the day wheneveryone's loaded on board, it's 21, 27.
So they're putting like.
700% more
mm-hmm.
Than, stress and effort andall the stuff on these boilers.
(17:15):
So that's interesting aboutthe leak and like the repair.
Yeah.
So when you think about four boilers, andthey're supposed to have 376 people, each
boiler handles less than a hundred people.
When they load on 2,127, each boiler'sgonna handle over 500 people, right?
So, like you said, yeah, likethey're taxing these boilers
way outside of their capacity.
(17:36):
Plus you have one that'sjust been repaired.
So this is where the whole issue starts.
So they reach Vicksburg on the 23rd.
Yep.
And and they start to load people on.
And like I said, they get, they hadjust gotten all those release prisoners
from those two Confederate of prisonerof war camps, and they load on.
(17:56):
They believe that they'reloading on less than 1500.
In actuality, they load on1,950 paroled prisoners.
So like they had made thedeal for a thousand, right?
They double that 'cause they'rejust not paying attention.
They're not checking.
And then 22 guards fromthe 58th Ohio volunteer.
You got the 70 paying passengers from NewOrleans and you have the 85 crew members.
(18:20):
That's a total of 2,127when it can only hold.
Three hundred and seventy six, that's 1800people over the capacity of the ship and.
I show you this picture thatthey take on April 26th.
So they leave the night of April 24th.
(18:40):
They make their way up the Mississippi.
And on April 26th, they stop in Helena,Arkansas, where a photographer took
a picture of the overcrowded vessel.
And I show that.
On the video.
That's kind, that's like the famous one.
They have it like all blown up.
So if you go to the Sultana DisasterMuseum in Marion, Arkansas, which is
only like, what, 20 minutes from Memphis?
Oh yeah.
It's just across the bridge.
(19:01):
It's might might be 15 minutes.
So if you're in the Memphisarea, definitely go visit.
But they, they have it blown up.
And what they point out is whatyou're gonna talk about is like
how the smoke stacks look differentand, and that's indicated by all the
people being on one side of the ship.
For this picture.
Yeah.
So everyone comes over to the landside'cause the photographer is setting
up there to take this photograph.
(19:21):
Well, you have 1800 people over capacityall going to one side of a ship.
And if you know anything about ships likeScott and I do, balance is everything.
. And so it's gonna list
and, and, and these and these river borne.
Ships and boats and stuff likethat, they don't have a deep draft.
So it's, it's the center of gravity,which is what's really important on
(19:41):
a ship, is much higher for these,these boats that are on the river.
And so when you have all of theseand you, I'll show the picture for
the, for those watching the video,when you have all these, these men
going to one side of the ship, thatcenter of gravity is gonna start.
Rocking the ship over towards wherethe picture is on the landside.
Yeah.
And like Scott said, riverboats not gonnahave a high draft because it's shallower.
(20:02):
The Mississippi gets very shallow incertain places, especially closer in
towards land, towards different ports.
And so it doesn't, it can't have a highdraft, so center gravity is higher.
The more decks you put on asteamship, the higher it gets.
And when you bring people over, it startsto list so much so that the captain
was worried it was going to to flip.
(20:22):
Yeah.
Capsize.
And so.
You can tell in the picture I showyou one smoke stack is letting off
smoke and the other is letting off.
Nothing that lets you know thatthe boilers are unbalanced.
There's water in one and there's notwater in another, and so you're not
having anything to burn, essentially.
So no steam is coming out and youcan, it's so evident in the picture.
(20:43):
You can also see the listing.
You can see where it's leaninginto the water more and.
They just get the picture as quickas they can and they get the men
to move over to the other side.
Now the ship is also like bowing incertain areas, and bowing is like the,
the floors are bending down and sothey're taking wooden planks and pushing
up the floors of the, like the third,second deck, third dead fork, death
(21:06):
to hold the people up so they know.
They have more peoplethan they should have.
They should
dump like half of 'em at Memphis.
I know.
So this happens on the 26th,this photograph is taken and
Scott will show the photograph.
You can even still see the antlersin the picture of the photograph.
Yeah.
It's super cool to see.
And that's taken in Helena,Arkansas and that they're gonna
arrive in Memphis at 7:00 PM.
(21:27):
On the 26th and they're gonna unload120 tons of sugar, which is gonna
help, and then 200 men get off.
So, whew.
Those men really do help.
And then she, then she's justgonna go a short distance up the
river and take on some coal about1:00 AM and then it's 2:00 AM.
On April 27th, 1865, aboutseven miles north of Memphis,
(21:53):
the boilers suddenly explode.
It kills people instantly, and thenall everyone else goes into the water.
Yeah, and, and one of the things, and.
I know a smidge about steam stuffbecause my first ship in the Navy
was still a steam ship, right?
The Navy has used Steam works well.
(22:13):
Steam Power works very, very well.
And so the Navy still hassome steam ships out there.
In my first, as the tarawa whereactually where you and I met.
And that was a steam ship.
Now, I was not an engineer on that ship,so I didn't learn as much as others.
But one of the things that you're lookingfor is balance across the boilers.
You don't want to put asudden drastic change on one
boiler because think about it.
(22:35):
All of a sudden you put abunch of water in there.
If there's all these men that are makingthe ship rock back and forth and making
things out of balance, well, if oneboiler is taking a heavy load, the other
one is getting super hot, but it's notburning anything, and then all of a sudden
if the water shifts over, that's gonnacause a sudden amount of water, heat, and
steam that will all of a sudden expand.
(22:58):
Think about heat, right?
Heat expands and that can causean already weakened or already.
Recently fixed, quote unquoteboiler to potentially explode.
And that is most likely whathappened with this because
things were so out of balance.
They were so heavy, the boilersjust couldn't handle the load.
(23:18):
They were so overstressed, and that ismost likely one of the things that caused.
The explosion.
And so you have people who die instantly,but you have all of these weakened
prisoners of war going into the waterand all the wood is catching on fire.
Yeah.
And, and you gotta think about it too.
It's still, it's April and theMississippi will still get pretty cold.
(23:40):
Yes.
So it's still spring.
And so it's not like they're fallinginto this warm, lukewarm water
where they can just float to shore.
I mean, it's, I don't, if it's not icy,it probably feels like that to these
men who were already very, very sickly.
If you've ever seen pictures ofprisoners of war that left was it
cahaba and what was the other one?
Andersonville.
Andersonville.
(24:01):
I mean, they are emaciated beyond belief.
It's, it's disturbing some of the,the pictures that are out there.
So men like that falling into the water.
Just literally don't have the strength totry and fight and swim their way to shore.
Yeah.
They were so weakened.
They ran outta strength.
They cling, they, they wouldclinging to each other, but
whole groups went down together.
(24:22):
Yep.
And so the, the Sultana is burning andthey realized, people in the area start to
realize that this is happening about two30, about half hour after the explosion.
Boats go out to try torescue the survivors.
So at the same time, dozens peoplehave floated down river and they're
beginning to float past Memphis.
(24:42):
They're calling for help.
And so you have ships goinginto the water to save people.
But in the end, thecasualties are about 1200.
So 1200 people will die.
And and then you're gonna have,it was like 2100, 1200 dies.
And
I, I wanna say like there's likeanother couple hundred that actually
die, like after they get out mm-hmm.
(25:03):
Of the river.
Because the total initial reporteddeaths for this was around 1600.
Yeah.
So I think there's like 1200 thatthey never, like, probably never
identified or just went down.
And then there's more that even diedafter they even got to shore Again.
Think about it.
All these men that are just sick canbarely, barely walk and move, let alone
try to swim out of an icy cold river.
(25:25):
And so that 1600 number is whatputs it above the Titanic and above.
The USS Arizona.
And then I think the 1200, if I remembercorrectly is what actually the book
author, and we'll mention him here injust a little bit that we met at the
museum mentioned, died, kind of that,that night going down with the ship.
Yes.
And so, like Scott said aboutthis 1200 who went down with
(25:47):
the ship, almost all of them.
Were unidentified.
Yep.
Because they would strip themselves oftheir clothes because they're wearing
these wool uniforms and it's pulling onwater and they strip themselves of their
clothes, and then they just don't havethe strength to swim and they're freezing.
And so when their bodies are found,there's nothing to identify them.
(26:07):
Yep.
And even if they did have their uniformson them, very few put tags and things.
So a lot of the men who were identified.
Or like Scott said, theysurvived the initial explosion.
They survived being pulled outta thewater, yet they died subsequently in
Memphis or other places later, butthey were able to give their name.
And so that's how a lot of themen who are identified, which is a
(26:31):
small percentage were identified.
We have a few men who washashore, and Ely is one of them.
And that's the person wetalk about with the author.
Yeah.
Lieutenant John Ely.
Mm-hmm.
From the Ohio.
He had.
A personal diary on him and his personaldiary is what kind of gives you some
insight to the life of a soldier?
(26:53):
A life of a prisoner of war.
And they identified him byhis name and, and who he was.
And so other soldiers sometimeshad name tags of their uniforms
sewn into their uniforms.
That was another way, but again.
Ely was pulled out of thewater like a week later.
So you can imagine the body isvery hard to identify a week after
(27:16):
it's been in the water for so long.
So those other distinguishing factorslike a diary or a tag would be
what they used at at the Civil War.
There's no dog tags at this time.
There was no dog tagsright during the Civil War.
So.
They don't have anything like that
to use.
Now this happened on theevening of April 26th, 1865.
(27:37):
So
it's the early morning of the27th, 2:00 AM early, early
morning of the 27th.
Mm-hmm.
And then later that day or thenext day, what kind of world famous
event happened that overshadowedwhat would've made headlines here?
So John Wilkes Booth is killed.
He's caught, and he's killed
he's, he's shot and heon the Garrett Farm.
(27:58):
On the Garrett Farm.
And so that headline makes April
26th.
April 26th.
So the day before.
So it actually happened the day before.
So when the news finally got out, itwas, he was already the headline of
the news and that dominated everything.
And so this kind of got buried.
Well below the death of John Wilkes Booth.
Yeah.
'cause that if you can, we talked aboutJohn Wilkes booth four and the manhunt.
(28:19):
So the two week manhunt that'sgoing on to catch him, it's
not quite two weeks, but yeah,
there's a huge reward out on him.
And so they caught him, they killedhim, and now they're doing like the
autopsy and, and everything surroundinghow they caught him in trial.
That's kitten.
That's getting all the headlines.
So the Sultana gets so buried and.
Because all of these menwere, again, unidentified.
(28:42):
Their families didn't evenknow if they had survived.
Their families didn't evenknow to look for them.
So it was one of those things thatit just gets so lost in history.
Yeah.
That that's why.
Memphis has the second most unidentifiedcivil war graves of any other place in
the United States because of the Sultana.
(29:03):
And these men stillhaven't been identified.
These families never knew whathappened to their sons, and they
thought maybe they died in battle.
They had no idea they were on thisSultana, no idea they were making it home.
No idea.
They almost got home.
And Ely is a great example of thatbecause even writes in his diary,
will Next Christmas, find me at home?
(29:24):
Yeah.
With my friends and family, right?
And no, like all of these men whosurvived a prisoner of war camp couldn't
survive sailing up the Mississippi.
Now obviously you, for thosewho listen to the to the podcast
regularly, know that we like to goand visit these historic locations.
That's typically the primarydriver for what we do.
Here.
Basically everything that we cover onthe show outside of interviews and movies
(29:46):
and stuff like that, we've gone to alocation, that historic location, so
it's you can't really go to where theSultana sank because the Mississippi
has shifted its course over the years.
But you can go to the SultanaDisaster Museum again.
We, as we mentioned earlier,in Marion, Arkansas, and that
they're actually just got a, a.A bunch of money donated to them.
(30:07):
They're, they're moving to amuch better, much nicer location.
And I think it wasn't it aslike Sean Aston the actor.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, so he, I think he's eitherinvolved or helped donate some
money or something like that.
Yeah.
So he's big involved in thecharity for the museum, so.
So think Rudy, Rudy,think Lord of the Rings.
He loves the story, heloves the His story.
He, he likes the story of it.
(30:28):
So think he was in Stranger Things.
Yes.
For, for our younger audience.
He was the, he was the, not thestepdad, but like the boyfriend.
Yeah.
Who like sacrificed himselfin season one or two.
Spoiler alert.
But so he actually I thinkhelped invest mm-hmm.
Or has been helping theSultana Disaster Museum.
And I think we're gonna tryto go to their new opening.
In April of 26.
(30:48):
March, April of 26 is what they said?
Yeah, I think it might be.
They had pushed it back.
It was supposed to be September, October25, but they pushed it back to 26.
But just so you know, the museum opened in. 2015, and it's because in 1982, they found
remnants of the Sultana in a soybean farm.
(31:09):
So I always stress this on theMississippi and Mississippi has
changed course and has changed coursesignificantly since the Civil War.
So much so that the areawhere the Sultana sank is now.
All land and a farm.
A soybean farm.
So in this soybean farm, theyfound wood burn, wood remnants.
And they found the boilers.
(31:30):
They found remnants of the boilers.
Oh.
They
actually, they, theyfound some of the boilers
and they've dug.
That's so cool.
They dug, they dug it up.
And so the.
Museum opened in 2015 and it's a greatlittle museum, but it can't house all of
these bigger artifacts that they've found.
They have a really greatdepiction of the ship.
Yeah, like a model, so you can reallysee what the sultana looked like.
They tell great stories.
(31:51):
They have lists of men that perished.
They have a lot of artifactsfrom those men including an
alligator that was on board.
It's actually, it's one ofthose things like, I think.
It deserves the location, the newlocation that it's moving to, because
it, they have so many artifacts there.
And there were some survivorsand there were people identified.
So they have pictures of people whoare on the Sultana because they did
(32:14):
identify some, some who made it out.
But it deserves this new location.
'cause right now it's a, in a, in a prettysmall little building, tucked around.
But when we went there, there werestill people coming and visiting.
We met people, mm-hmm.
A two gals that were.
Driving up up toMichigan, stuff like that.
And there, there's a fair amount of peoplethat are still seeking this spot out.
Yeah.
And it's gonna be in a new stateof the art permanent museum.
(32:37):
They took the old gymnasium ofthe Marion high school and they
re renovated it into the museum.
So it's gonna have a great space.
And again, it's only likemaybe 15 minutes from Memphis.
So if you want to drive that iconic.
Memphis Bridge, right?
If you're, if you're visiting theMemphis area and you wanna drive
across the Mississippi, you can driveacross that iconic Memphis Bridge
(32:58):
and go and visit Marion Arkansas.
This is a great little spotto go, do an afternoon visit.
Absolutely.
And if you wanna like learnmore about the greatest maritime
disaster in American history.
This is waiting for you.
It's, there's a lot of likehistorical markers to the Sultana.
There's one in Memphis, ofcourse, there's one in Vicksburg.
We saw the one in Vicksburg.
There's one in Ohio because a lotof the men were from the 115th Ohio.
(33:22):
There's one in Knoxville,there's one in Michigan.
So it's just honoring the men.
A lot of these regiments represented,but in the aftermath there was
a lot of lack of accountability.
They tried, so you have to realizethe captain of the Sultana died.
He was last seen helpingpeople to get off the ship.
(33:44):
He was last seen trying to save asmany survivors as he could so he
could never be held accountable.
He's.
Killed in the disaster.
When you talk about hatch, who worked upthe scheme, he to avoid a court martial he
acquits the military as quick as possible.
He quits service, avoids coursemartial and goes into hiding.
They tried to make aCaptain Frederick speed.
(34:06):
He was a union officer who sent the1900 parole visitors to Vicksburg
and that they tried to charge him.
And then the judge advocategeneral overturned it because speed
was at the parole camp all day.
He was not personally involved.
He was just sending the prisonersout saying, here, go on the ship.
Go on the ship.
And then they have a Captain,George Augustus Williams, he had
placed men on board and was a Armyofficer, but the military refused
(34:29):
to go after one of their own.
So he was never held accountable either.
And then you got CaptainMason of the Sultana.
Like I said, he ultimately died.
So in the end, no one was everheld responsible for this greatest
deadliest maritime disasterin the United States history.
And I think that also.
Goes in line.
'cause there was no public outcry tohold someone responsible because the
(34:50):
public really didn't know about it.
And so it's the end ofthe Civil War people who.
To have no idea that their family membersare even in a confederate prisoner of war
camp, just figured that they had died,had no idea to even fight for justice
for their, for their family member.
So that's what makesthis all the more sad.
(35:12):
And then as a historian andpeople who love to tell history,
their story was lost to history.
And so that's what we find.
So important to have to getout and tell this story.
'cause it's so fascinating.
It's so interesting.
It's how this perfect storm comestogether to create the greatest
disaster that no one knows about.
Yeah.
And so we just want youguys to know about it.
(35:33):
Find out more, visit the museum.
And if you have any questions for us andyou wanna know more about this, please
leave a comment or something like that.
Let us know if you knew about this.
And, and what we can do today to honorthe men of the Sultana and their lives
and what they gave to this country.
(35:55):
The Sultana disaster is still the largestmaritime disaster in American history that
almost no one knows about no one but you.
You know that in April of 1865,this Steamboat left New Orleans
and traveled north, picking upthousands of soldiers hoping to
get home after the end of the war.
You also know that not long afterthe Sultana left Memphis, the
(36:18):
rocking of the ship overloaded theboilers causing them to explode.
Sinking one of the fastestSteamboats on the river and claiming
more lives than the Titanic.
And our history lovers outthere now have that dinnertime.
Trivia question, if the CivilWar era topic ever comes up,
why isn't the Sultana disaster?
Better known?
(36:39):
It was overshadowed by the newsof the death of John Wilkes Booth.
News that swept the globe andburied this Sultana disaster in the
murky depths of the Mississippi.
If you wanna experience this historyfirsthand and see artifacts from the
Sultana, get to the Memphis area,drive that iconic Memphis Bridge
across the Mississippi, and stopby the new and improved Sultana
(37:02):
Disaster Museum in Marion, Arkansas.
We'll talk to you next time.
Thank you.
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