Sometimes captains accidentally ran their boats up onto the sandbars. "They had survived prison in one of the most hideous places the South had. More passengers boarded at Baton Rouge including a number of politicians fresh from the state legislative session that had just ended early for the holiday. A Look Back The day the Golden Eagle steamboat sank in 1947. While the Titanic caused more deaths, the great ocean liner was a British vessel and carried people from several different countries. "He told the captain and the chief engineer the boiler was not safe, but the engineer said he would have a complete repair job done when the boat made it to St. Passengers were blown apart or scalded by the hot water. By the time the repairs would have been completed, the prisoners would have been sent home on other boats. During the 1850s, traffic soared. St. Louis' biggest party ran for seven months and was such a success it even made money. Or does it let would-be historians off the hook from paying their own dues for embarking on the composition of a piece of nonfiction? Why should potential readers care? It didn't run for several years during World War II because wartime supply restrictions blocked needed upgrades to the boilers. "I understand that the Fogelmans were able to put together some logs to make a raft and go out and take people off the boat as it drifted back this way," Fogelman says. Many of the stories that the newspapers got from survivors were not always correct (one man said that there were people from every state in the Union on boardnot so), but they were reporting what they were told. by Kelby Ouchley Courtesy of The Historic New Orleans Collection Steamboat Princess. Between 1823 and 1848, 365 boats made 7,645 trips. The Sultana was on its way from Vicksburg, Miss., to St. Louis when the explosion occurred, says Jerry Potter, a Memphis lawyer and author of The Sultana Tragedy. By the post-World War II era, screw-propellered, diesel-powered, flat-nosed towboats dotted the Tennessee, Cumberland, and Mississippi River Systems that once had hosted the Steamboat Age. A freight train carrying hazardous materials derailed in southwestern Wisconsin on Thursday, injuring four employees and sending two containers into the Mississippi River. There were 10 passengers on board. In the early 1900s, the Mississippi River shifted about two miles to the east, leaving the wreck under about 15 feet of Arkansas soil. Get up-to-the-minute news sent straight to your device. The Directorypadded out the bloody prose of the disaster descriptions and the repetitive awfulness of the illustrations with current business and travel information about the Mississippi Valley. Louis.". Freight and cargo were much more profitablealthough the movement of animals could be a backbreaking, smelly proposition! Explosion of the Oronoko, April 21, 1838, near Princeton, Mississippi. (Post-Dispatch), U.S. Army Corps of Engineers crews dismantle the wreck of the Golden Eagle on May 28, 1947, to eliminate its hazard to river navigation. Considered one of them was the biggest vessel ever to sail via the world. Library of Congress April 27, 2023. Near midnight, Sultana left Memphis, leaving behind about 200 men. Wolf River. [4]:202 Captain Hatch, who had concocted a bribe with Captain Mason to crowd as many men onto Sultana as possible, had quickly quit the service to avoid a court-martial. Regaining control, Smith wheeled toward the island and shoved the bow against the bank as the boat listed to port. Pages in category "Shipwrecks of the Mississippi River" The following 50 pages are in this category, out of 50 total. He was company president for many years and sold the company in 1946. Three civilian victims of the wreck of Sultana are interred at Elmwood Cemetery in Memphis. The official inquiry found that the boilers exploded because of the combined effects of careening, low water levels, and the faulty repair made a few days earlier.[16]. In a seeming paradox of frontier boosterism, Lloyds book sold this terrible recent history of the Mississippi as a romantic feature of the area. [5] About ten hours south of Vicksburg, one of Sultana's four boilers sprang a leak. And finally, at the end of the war, the Sultana would have played a significant role in transporting former Union prisoners-of-war back to the North. When it got to Grand Tower Ill. catastrophe struck. The steamboat had left the St. Louis levee two days before a seven-day round trip to and from Nashville, Tenn. (Edward J. Burkhardt/Post-Dispatch), The crippled Golden Eagle settled and listing in the Mississippi River at Grand Tower Island after sunrise on May 18, 1947. William H. "Buck" Leyhe of St. Louis at the wheel of the Golden Eagle steamboat in April 1939. This list may not reflect recent changes . Introduced in 1848, they could generate twice as much steam per fuel load as conventional boilers. Also, many people chose to pay for only deck passage, which restricted the traveler to the lowest (main) deck. The men were packed into every available space as all cabin spaces were already filled with civilian passengers; the overflow was so severe that in some places, the decks began to creak and sag and had to be supported with heavy wooden beams. Steamboats traveled into Iowa border waters even before Iowa was legally open for settlement. The Vault isSlates history blog. By 1857, St. Paul had become a bustling port, with over 1,000 steamboat arrivals each year by some 62 to 99 boats. [4]:164 Other vessels joined the rescue, including the steamers Silver Spray, Jenny Lind, and Pocahontas, the navy ironclad USS Essex and the sidewheel gunboat USSTyler. Aurora (1902) steam screw. The Sultana was especially helpful to the Union forces under General Ulysses S. Grant as he moved to capture Vicksburg, Mississippi, and open the Mississippi River to Union navigation. By that standard, the loss of the Golden Eagle was a minor event. Her four boilers were interconnected and mounted side-by-side so that if the boat tipped sideways, water would tend to run out of the highest boiler. It just hurts my heart. The Mississippi River has changed course several times since the disaster, leaving the wreck under dry land and far from today's river. Bad storms hit the river in the summer. Today, though, the city of Marion, Ark., thinks people are ready to learn about the Sultana. Only six years before, it had foundered in the river near Chester, Ill., with one crew member lost. Among those killed were Louisiana state representatives H. J. Huard and Charles Bannister. The lure of huge profits led steamboats to travel in unsafe river conditions and at unsafe speeds. Sometimes these snags stuck out of the water. Most were Union soldiers, newly released from Confederate prison camps. Now, through the use of the internet, people can search hundred, perhaps thousands, of newspapers, from the United States as well as from around the world. Built in New Albany, Indiana, in 1832, the steamboat Heroine plied the Ohio and Mississippi from its launch in that year until in 1838 a navigation disaster left it beneath the waters of the Red River. The Hayne was sold in 1908 to C.J. On the other hand, the Sultana was an American steamboat carrying almost 100 percent American passengers, including almost 2,000 recently released Union prisoners-of-war returning home to their families. The boilers exploded off Cairo, killing at least 1443 men, a loss of life never exceeded on the rivers, and rarely at sea. Explosion of the Steamboat Constitution, May 4, 1817, Point Coupee, Louisiana. The Sultana was a 260-foot-long wooden steamboat, built in Cincinnati in 1863, which regularly transported passengers and freight between St. Louis and New Orleans on the Mississippi River.. On April 23, 1865, the vessel docked in Vicksburg to address . But it was the last trace of St. Louis' own Eagle Packet Co., which Leyhe's father and uncle founded shortly before the Civil War, when the downtown levee was crowded with steamboats. Because Union forces had captured Memphis in 1862 and turned it into a supply and recuperation city, numerous local hospitals treated the roughly 760 survivors with the latest medical equipment and trained personnel. [4]:24 On April 26, Sultana stopped at Helena, Arkansas, where photographer Thomas W. Bankes took a picture of the grossly overcrowded vessel. Who Was John Wilkes Booth Before He Became Lincoln's Assassin. In the 1820s, steamboats on the Mississippi carried lead from Julien Dubuque's lead mines near Dubuque. There is no apparent motive for him to have blown up the boat, especially while on board. Soldiers from Kentucky and Tennessee were among the first to die, he says, "because they'd been packed in next to the boilers. The museum also features many artifacts from the Sultana Survivor's Association, as well as a fourteen-foot model replica of the boat. Steamboat Princess Disaster On February 27, 1859, the Steamboat Princess exploded on the Mississippi River killing between 70 and 200 passengers and crew. Salecker, historical consultant for the Sultana Disaster Museum in Marion, Arkansas, recently participated in an author q&a with former Naval History editor-in-chief Fred Schultz to discuss the book: FS: After having read your exhaustive story of the various iterations of the steamboat Sultana, I couldnt help but compare her fate to the loss of the Titanic, which, as Im sure you know, has received much more attention from historians. Since the US government was paying steamboat captains a dividend to carry the prisoners back north, Captain Hatch and the captain of the Sultana worked out a deal whereby Hatch would guarantee a large load of ex-prisoners for the Sultana in exchange for a kickback of the government funds from Captain Mason. Maintaining a posted schedule was important in the competitive business of steamboat commerce. Fire broke out and began to consume the remains. The location of the explosion, from the top rear of the boilers and far away from the fireboxes, tends to indicate that Louden's claim of sabotage of an exploding coal torpedo in the firebox was pure bravado. . Even amid the horrendous chaos, rescue efforts began immediately. Group, a Graham Holdings Company. Savannah Davis, 23, died from blunt . GES: I began to dispel the myths and untruths surrounding the Sultana shortly after the Naval Institute Press published my first book in 1996. [15][full citation needed], The official cause of the Sultana disaster was determined to be the mismanagement of water levels in the boilers, exacerbated by the fact that the vessel was severely overloaded and top-heavy. This led to many accidents and groundings. [4]:129 Eventually, the hulk of Sultana drifted about six miles (10km) to the west bank of the river and sank at around 7:00 AM near Mound City and present-day Marion, Arkansas, about five hours after the explosion. [33] The museum is only temporary until enough funds can be raised to build a permanent museum. From 1817 to 1871, about 5,600 people died on Mississippi River wrecks of all sorts, including burst boilers, collisions and fires. BNSF said in a statement that two of . At least a hundred people survived their injuries. 1 was no longer used to manufacture boilers after 1879. The Sultana Tragedy: Americas Greatest Maritime Disaster. The Sultana sank in the Mississippi River near Marion, and over the years, the wreck was eventually covered with silt. All rights reserved. [4]:2931, Leaving Vicksburg, Sultana traveled downriver to New Orleans, continuing to spread the news of Lincoln's assassination. At least thirty-nine passengers and crew members died in the accident. The Nick Wall, named for a noteworthy Missouri River riverboat captain, was a 338-ton sternwheel paddleboat built in 1869 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Many Sultana survivors ended up on the Arkansas side of the river, which was under Confederate control during the war. Then the captain did his best to steer around the dead trees, but sometimes they were hidden underwater. The steamer registered 1,719 tons[2] and normally carried a crew of 85. Explosion of the Moselle, Near Cincinnati, Ohio, April 25, 1838.. The disaster was overshadowed in the press by events surrounding the end of the Civil War, including the killing of President Abraham Lincoln's assassin John Wilkes Booth just the day before. [4]:7479. A train derailment in southwestern Wisconsin on Thursday sent two derailed containers into the Mississippi River, and at least four employees were injured, according to officials. Via History.com The steamboat Sultana explodes on the Mississippi River near Memphis, killing 1,700 passengers including many discharged Union soldiers. In the end, no one was ever held accountable for what remains the deadliest maritime disaster in United States history. That is a sunken ship almost every 3 miles! A BNSF Railway freight train traveling along the banks of the Mississippi River derailed near Ferryville, Wis., shortly after noon Thursday, the company said. To the left are the smokestacks of the Union Electric Co. plant at Cahokia. She also carried a crew of 85. Smith shouted at 2:20 a.m., suddenly unable to turn the steering wheel. Example: Yes, I would like to receive emails from 64 Parishes. The report blamed quartermaster Capt. A crew member fished liquor bottles from the half-flooded bar. For several hours its crew and passengers provided aid before heading upriver, its decks covered with bodies of the dead and injured. But some of the most poignant stories involve Confederate soldiers rescuing their Union counterparts. "In order to save time, they would set the people off in treetops, and go back to the boat to take more off.". The train derailed in Crawford County at about 12:15 p.m. Two of the train's three locomotives and an unknown number of cars . Since most steamboats of the time were constructed of wood covered with paint and varnish, fires were a significant concern. "At 2 a.m., one of the boilers exploded, resulting in two other boilers exploding," Potter says. A potential reader should care about this story because it shows that greed and corruption in the government is not a new thing. The massive steam explosion came from the top rear of the boilers. Instead of taking two or three days, the temporary repair took only one. A U.S. Coast Guard vessel searches the waters near the east bank of the Mississippi River near the I-10 bridge, just before noon, Wednesday, Dec. 1, 2021, after a man fell from the American Queen . One-Year subscription (4 issues) : $20.00, Two-Year subscription (8 issues) : $35.00, 64 Parishes 2023. Potter, Jerry. 2. The collision startled Marga Sachse, a passenger from St. Louis, who said she "felt a jar, and the ship lurched.". [4]:50,5556 Although Sultana had a legal capacity of only 376, by the time she backed away from Vicksburg on the night of April 24, she was severely overcrowded with over 1,953 paroled prisoners, 22 guards from the 58th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, over 70 fare-paying cabin passengers, and 85 crew members, for a total of 2,130 people. 5) was built in February 1863, but she was used extensively throughout the last two years of the Civil War to carry Union troops and supplies on the Cumberland and the Mississippi Rivers to aid in the collapse of the Confederacy. The ill-fated Sultana in Helena, Ark., just before it exploded on April 27, 1865, with about 2,500 people aboard. The Sultana should be remembered because what happened to her need not have happened. She then went a short distance upriver to take on a new load of coal from some coal barges and then, at about 1:00 AM, started north again. Potter says he went to the library to learn more and wondered, "Why haven't I ever heard of this?" 2) The use of the sediment-laden Mississippi River water to feed the boilers. web oct 10 2017 it was the steamboat sultana on the mississippi river and it could have been prevented in 1865 the civil war was winding down and the . The train . In Malta Bend, Missouri, there's one that sank loaded down with expensive and rare trading . The boat was loaded with passengers, mostly from Mississippi and Louisiana, headed to New Orleans to celebrate Mardi Gras. The May 9, 1989 the Des Moines Register newspaper listed 40 known sunken steamboats from the southwest corner of Iowa north just over 100 miles to Sioux City. Click on links in the titles below to reach Lloyds descriptions of the accidents pictured. [citation needed]. It was easier to copy everything and not use some of it than to forget to copy something and need it later on. A USS Abeona Andy Gibson (steamboat) USS Antelope (1861) USS Arizona (1858) B USC&GS Baton Rouge (1875) USS Black Hawk (1848) C USS Cincinnati (1861) City-class ironclad CSS Colonel Lovell The vessel was heading from St . The most terrible steamboat disaster in history was probably the loss of the Sultana in 1865. [4]:40, Although Hatch had suggested that Mason might get as many as 1,400 released Union prisoners, a mix-up with the parole camp books and suspicion of bribery from other steamboat captains caused the Union officer in charge of the loading, Captain George Augustus Williams, to place every man at the parole camp on board Sultana, believing the number to be less than 1,500. It was her 82nd birthday. The current on the Missouri was fast, and the channelthe deepest part of the rivershifted from place to place. BNSF Railway says two of three locomotives and "an unknown number of cars carrying freights of all kinds" derailed onto the banks of the Mississippi River around 12:15 p.m. Crews are now working . The remains of a ship on the banks of the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge, La., on Oct. 17, 2022, after recently being revealed due to the low water level. 2), built in 1860 but coming downriver on her maiden voyage after being refurbished,[6] arrived at about 2:30 AM, a half hour after the explosion, and rescued scores of survivors. And many of them were saved by local residents, like John Fogelman an ancestor of the city of Marion's current mayor, Frank Fogelman. [11] The official count by the United States Customs Service was 1,547. The Golden Eagle's new St. Louis-based owners left it to the river's mercy. The boat and its entire cargo was a total loss. It was reported that the steamer was insured for $8,000. Beneath Tennessee River, Steamboat Wreckage Presents Mystery Once the driving force of the southeast Tennessee city's economic growth, Chattanooga's riverfront is home to just the 10th shipwreck recorded in state history - a boat whose story time forgot. The term steamboat is used to refer to smaller, insular, steam-powered boats working on lakes and rivers . (Post-Dispatch), Retired Capt. All 25 soldiers were rescued, historians say, and the Fogelman home became a refuge for Sultana survivors. The vessel measured 260 feet (79m) long, with a 42 feet (13m) width at the beam, displaced 1,719 short tons (1,559t), and had a 7-foot (2.1m) draft. (The whole book is digitally available via the Library of Congress, on the Internet Archive.). However, Louden's claim is controversial, and most scholars support the official explanation. GES: I am a bit ambivalent about that. Men in skiffs from both riverbanks rescued people clinging to debris. "Somebody had came by and notified us. An estimated 1,800 people died in the explosion and ensuing fire more than died in the sinking of the Titanic. "It was like a tremendous bomb going off in the middle of where these men were," Potter says. All contents [4]:2728, Upon reaching Vicksburg, Mississippi, Mason was approached by Captain Reuben Hatch, the chief quartermaster at Vicksburg, with a proposal. And, in fact, when the boats used the regular flue boilers, the sediment in the water was not too much of a problem. GES: The dirty river water of the lower Mississippi was not really thought of as a problem by the steamboat captains or engineers. The crew threw more wood on the fire. [24]:193197, Despite the magnitude of the disaster, no one was ever formally held accountable. In 2012 and 2015, the river was low sufficient to additionally expose the USS Inaugural. Sultana was a commercial side-wheel steamboat which exploded and sank on the Mississippi River on April 27, 1865, killing 1,169 people in what remains the worst maritime disaster in United States history. So on the 150th anniversary of the sinking, the city of Marion, Ark., is trying to make sure the Sultana will be remembered. [18] Louden, a former Confederate agent and saboteur who operated in and around St. Louis, had been responsible for the burning of the steamboat Ruth. ", 15th Michigan Volunteer Infantry Regiment, Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company, Judge Advocate General of the United States Army, "Sultana: A Tragic Postscript to the Civil War", https://www.nationalboard.org/SiteDocuments/General%20Meeting/Jennings.pdf, "The Sultana Disaster (Coal Torpedo theory)", http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/investigation/civil-war-sabotage/, Sultana museum in Arkansas memorializes 1,169 people who died in river, "Surviving the Worst: The Wreck of the Sultana at the End of the American Civil War", "Blues in the Water, by King's German Legion", "Ardent Presents: Cory Branan "The Wreck of the Sultana", "Remember the Sultana | Film Threat - Part 2", Shipwrecks and maritime incidents in 1865, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sultana_(steamboat)&oldid=1152358259, Articles with incomplete citations from April 2022, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles with unsourced statements from April 2022, Articles with unsourced statements from July 2018, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Initially Capt.
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