The Vault isSlates history blog. As stated in the 1903 newspaper article, the log was mistakenly taken by Sultana. Barrels of flour were emptied on the ground, and the terribly burned victims were rolled in it and placed in the shade. When the Princess pulled up to the wharf in Baton Rouge early on the morning of February 27, 1859, it was already late. The Slate Group LLC. Instead, Mason and his chief engineer, Nathan Wintringer, convinced the mechanic to make temporary repairs, hammering back the bulged boiler plate and riveting a patch of lesser thickness over the seam. Badger State (1844) steam paddle. Writing about the scene after the explosion of the Louisiana (which blew up in the docks at New Orleans on Nov. 15, 1849), Lloyd wrote: The woodcut illustrations below, which ran small in the book, reveal a repetitive motif when looked at in a larger format: bodies thrown in the air, depicted in flight at the moment of explosion. 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. Effie Afton Hits the Bridge. 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 . New York: Dover Maritime, 1994. ", Discovery Gives New Ending To A Death At The Civil War's Close. I then decided that since it had been 25 years since the publication of my first book, I needed to put out a new book on the Sultana. Dropping water levels could cause hot spots leading to metal fatigue, significantly increasing the risk of an explosion. Fire, drowning and exposure would kill many hundreds more. Given as the "John Lithoberry Shipyard" on Ohio Historical Marker 1831 (1999) on the Ohio River at Sawyer Point. (Post-Dispatch). He was company president for many years and sold the company in 1946. Terrific Explosion of the Steamboat Ben Franklin, at Mobile, Alabama, March 13, 1836. A sister boat to the famous Natchez, the Princess had undergone a thorough retrofitting the previous summer and was said to be one of the fastest and most luxurious craft on the Mississippi River. There is no apparent motive for him to have blown up the boat, especially while on board. By the 1830s steamboats had navigated the Missouri River to the mouth of the Yellowstone River. The Sultana made it only a few miles north of Memphis. Louis.". Yet, shortly after my 1996 book came out, a cabal of people sprang up touting the sabotage theory once again. 2012 was additionally when the river was low sufficient to expose five steamboat wrecks along the Missouri River between St. Charles and Bridgeton. The Tricky Missouri River and the Steamboat Bertrand, The First Bridge Over the Mississippi and the Effie Afton, Majestic Riverboat Reigned on the Mississippi, Simulated travel guide describing travel conditions in Iowa from 1830 to 1879, Personal accounts from a steamboat captain describing life on the Mississippi transporting lumber, Article describes the history of steamboats in Iowa City in the 1800s, Transcribed official records, newspaper clippings, historical accounts and diary entries about life on the Mississippi River, Transcribed official records, newspaper clippings, historical accounts and diary entries about life on the Missouri River, Audio story about the last riverboat gambling cruise of the Mississippi Belle II in 2007, Ginalie Swaim Ed., Steaming Up the River,. ", Ancestry.com, Texas Death Certificates, 19031980, Jennings, Pat "What Happened to the Sultana? The steam packet boat is one of the most enduring and iconic images from the glory days of the Steamboat Era. Many of the paroled prisoners had been weakened by their incarceration and associated illnesses but had managed to gain some strength while waiting at the parole camp to be officially released. 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. Catchers once in a lifetime lunge saves Cardinals, The world watches (and makes donations) as St. Louis bald eagle raises eaglet from a rock, Governor threatens to keep Missouri lawmakers in session over transgender rules, Barat Academy in Chesterfield to close after years of financial troubles, Four young people die in Old Monroe head-on crash, Court records online include private information for thousands of Missouri residents, Archdiocese releases third draft of proposed changes to St. Louis parishes. A Look Back The day the Golden Eagle steamboat sank in 1947 Who Was John Wilkes Booth Before He Became Lincoln's Assassin. However, Courtenay's great-great-grandson, Joseph Thatcher, who wrote a book on Courtenay and the coal torpedo, denies that a coal torpedo was used in the Sultana disaster. Group, a Graham Holdings Company. Poster 17" x 22". Hersey and many others died instantly in a blast of scalding steam. FS: Tell us why the Sultana Disaster Museum is located in Marion, Arkansas. [4]:72 Sultana subsequently arrived at Memphis, Tennessee, around 7:00 PM, and the crew began unloading 120 tons (109 tonnes) of sugar from the hold. [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. By Lieutenant Commander Ralph P. Dillon, U. S. Naval Reserve. No one was ever held accountable for the tragedy. yet the tragedy got very few headlines. Find out more about what this space is all abouthere. That is a sunken ship almost every 3 miles! An estimated four hundred people were on board the Princess when it pulled out into the current of the river after 9 a.m. Because the boat was late, high boiler pressure had been maintained during the stop, and second engineer Peter Hersey was reported to have declared that he would make it to New Orleans on time if he had to blow her up. As a portent of the looming catastrophe, the Mississippi River was veiled in a dense fog. Publisher James T. Lloyds 1856 book Lloyds Steamboat Directory, and Disasters on the Western Waters, is illustrated by 32 woodcuts of explosions, fires, and foundering ships, chronicling a decades-long history of steamboat mayhem. 2) The use of the sediment-laden Mississippi River water to feed the boilers. Highlights of the Mississippi River Cruise: Round-trip from New Orleans Length: Five days Price: Starts at $2,405 per person Enjoy a complimentary overnight in New Orleans before embarking on. Under reduced pressure, the steamboat limped into Vicksburg to get the boiler repaired and to pick up her promised load of prisoners. Slate is published by The Slate Nashville: Land Yacht Press, 2000. Author Q&ADestruction of the Steamboat Sultana The Sultana should be remembered because what happened to her need not have happened. In a seeming paradox of frontier boosterism, Lloyds book sold this terrible recent history of the Mississippi as a romantic feature of the area. Investigation Tip: Most were Union soldiers, newly released from Confederate prison camps. From 1817 to 1871, about 5,600 people died on Mississippi River wrecks of all sorts, including burst boilers, collisions and fires. 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. The sediment tended to settle on the bottom of the boilers or clog between the flues and leave hotspots. Sultana (steamboat) - Wikipedia The disaster of the Princess near Baton Rouge in 1859 was a tragically typical example. Beneath Tennessee River, Steamboat Wreckage Presents Mystery They'd stay in a motel at night, but she loved to cook for the crew and the men from the Coast Guard. [4]:62, Sultana spent two days traveling upriver, fighting against one of the worst spring floods in the river's history. GRAND TOWER, ILL. It was the first trip of the season for the Golden Eagle, an antique steamboat with twin stacks, gingerbread woodwork and a splashing sternwheel. 2023 It was just weeks after the Civil War ended, Potter explains, and the vessel was packed with Union soldiers who'd been released from Confederate prison camps. Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing, 1992. In the end, no one was ever held accountable for what remains the deadliest maritime disaster in United States history. Instead, newspaper accounts say Franklin Barton saved several Union soldiers. Frank Barton is the descendant of one of those Confederate soldiers, a man named Franklin Hardin Barton. [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. Contains photos of War Eagle and steamer Reindeer. An engraving of the Sultana explosion, published in Harpers Weekly, May 20, 1865. The Golden Eagle was bound for Nashville, Tenn., from its St. Louis home via the Ohio and Cumberland rivers. The few steamboats still gliding along the rivers today are usually carrying tourists on short trips. Bridges, shipwrecks, islands, and secret spots on the Mississippi River Publisher James T. Lloyd's 1856 book Lloyd's Steamboat Directory, and Disasters on the Western Waters, is illustrated by 32 woodcuts of explosions, fires, and foundering ships, chronicling a. Although the mechanic wanted to cut out and replace a ruptured seam, Mason knew such a job would take a few days and cost him his precious load of prisoners. It seemed that profit was the driving factor for most steamboat owners and captains. A tall mirror glistened behind the walnut bar. Shipwreck found in Mississippi River near Grand Tower, Ill. - KFVS12 The museum also features many artifacts from the Sultana Survivor's Association, as well as a fourteen-foot model replica of the boat. Steamboat History: CAPE GIRARDEAU/GORDON C. GREENE At around 2:00AM on April 27, 1865, when Sultana was about seven miles (11km) north of Memphis, its patched boiler suddenly and violently exploded, killing 400-500 men instantly. However, the Judge Advocate General of the United States Army overturned the guilty verdict because Speed had been at the parole camp all day and had not personally placed a single soldier on board Sultana. As the steamboat made her way north following the twists and turns of the river, she listed severely from side to side. Recollections of a Rebel ReeferVol. Introduced in 1848, they could generate twice as much steam per fuel load as conventional boilers. 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. You have permission to edit this article. Passengers were blown apart or scalded by the hot water. Through the corruption of Captain Reuben Hatch, a Union officer at Vicksburg, Mississippi, and the captain of the Sultana, James Cass Mason, those 2,000 ex-prisoners were crowded onto a boat with a legal carrying capacity of only 376 passengers. I think reporting was much more accurate, and less political, than it is today. Category:Shipwrecks of the Mississippi River - Wikipedia The train . GES: Goods and materials were by far the most important and more profitable cargo to carry. Uninjured crewmen and passengers dragged the injured up onto the sandbar. [12] In 1880, the War Department placed the number of survivors at 931, but the most recent research places the number at 961. Aunt Letty (1855) steam paddle. The massive steam explosion came from the top rear of the boilers. He was a passenger aboard the Golden Eagle, the company's last steamboat, when it sank near Tower Island in the Mississippi River on May 18, 1947. The stops were reversed on the downstream journey as passengers, mail, and tons of freight including four-hundred-pound bales of cotton were loaded and unloaded. The boilers exploded off Cairo, killing at least 1443 men, a loss of life never exceeded on the rivers, and rarely at sea. Whole groups went down together. Almost all were Union soldiers who had survived the . By eliminating the manpower required to row or paddle, often against powerful currents, steamboats fueled an exponential growth in trade and development. Steamboats and flatboats brought thousands of early settlers to the new land of Iowa. GES: I began to dispel the myths and untruths surrounding the Sultana shortly after the Naval Institute Press published my first book in 1996. The name stuck. Irregular river depth, sandbars and snags made steamboat travel on the Missouri slow and dangerous. When the boat tipped the other way, water rushing back into the empty boiler would hit the hot spots and flash instantly to steam, creating a sudden surge in pressure. Instead of taking two or three days, the temporary repair took only one. [7] Many died of drowning or hypothermia. 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]. Golden Eagle's pilot house was salvaged. The term steamboat is used to refer to smaller, insular, steam-powered boats working on lakes and rivers . Explosion and Burning of the Steamboat Teche on the Mississippi River, May 5, 1825., Explosion of the Helen McGregor, At Memphis, Tennessee, February 24, 1830., Terrific Explosion of the Steamboat Ben Franklin, at Mobile, Alabama, March 13, 1836.. Sometimes the boilers exploded. We turn the clock back to April of 1993 and present excerpts of the original reviews from Joe Pollack. 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 . [4]:7985, While the Sultana burned, and the men on the steamboat were either already dead or fighting for their lives, the southbound steamer Bostona (No. 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. On the decks the passengers cheered as the boat headed up the river. Jan. 3, 1844 Steamboat wreck kills as many as 70 on the Mississippi The city has created a museum and is hosting events intended to bring attention to the tragedy. (Post-Dispatch), The Golden Eagle moored on the St. Louis riverfront in May 1946. At some places, the river overflowed the banks and spread out three miles wide. Among its owners on that day was Herman Pott, St. Louis boatbuilder. Slaves from the nearby Cottage plantation were ordered to bring sheets and blankets. "It won't move!" Johnson points out that steamboat explosions, caused by faulty boilers, were the nineteenth centurys first confrontation with industrialized mayhem, and Lloyds prose seemed almost to revel in these horrors. Experience showed that the rivers were briefly superior to rails as lines of communication. It was late April 1865 and more than 2,000 tired, sick, and injured men, wearing dirty and tattered clothes, filed down the bluff from Vicksburg to a steamboat waiting at the docks on the Mississippi River. That day, he says, the water was moving very quickly and contained a lot of trees and other debris. When steamboats went out to investigate the wreck, they reported on what was found. Some survivors were plucked from the tops of semi-submerged trees along the Arkansas shore. All Rights Reserved. This led to many accidents and groundings. Get up-to-the-minute news sent straight to your device. The Sultana Disaster | American Battlefield Trust A sunken casino boat has been uncovered in the Mississippi as severe drought pushes water levels in the Memphis section of the river to record lows. The Mississippi was not as dangerous. Yet few know the story of the Sultana's demise, or the ensuing rescue effort that included Confederate soldiers saving Union soldiers they might have shot just weeks earlier. Wreck of the Montana - YouTube Concussion swept away the infrastructure, and the upper cabins, state rooms, and hurricane deck collapsed inward. He ordered the engines reversed, but the drifting boat smacked into submerged rocks near Grand Tower Island, opening a gash on its port (left) side. Jan. 3, 1844 Steamboat wreck kills as many as 70 on the Mississippi at St. Louis By Tim O'Neil St. Louis Post-Dispatch Jan 3, 2023 0 1 of 2 Steamboats and freight wagons crowd the St. Louis. In his book River of Dark Dreams, historian Walter Johnson writes that the table of contents of Lloyds bestseller was sort of a nightmare poem of alphabetized Americana: a catalog of 97 major and hundreds of minor boat disasters. Many Sultana survivors ended up on the Arkansas side of the river, which was under Confederate control during the war. A freight train carrying hazardous materials derailed in southwestern Wisconsin on Thursday, injuring four employees and sending two containers into the Mississippi River. It was a standard fare, no matter who you were. At least a hundred people survived their injuries. It was not until the U.S. government began to crack down and either enact, or enforce, the laws, that safety became an overriding factor in steamboat travel. ", 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. Steamboat Accidents on the Mississippi River by Sara Mayer - Prezi Lavish meals were served four times a day in a great central hall, and surviving menus list such gourmet delicacies as broiled pompano and stuffed crabs. What is the allure to your treatment of the Sultana stories? . The steamboat sank shortly after it struck submerged rocks at 2:20 a.m. All 91 passengers and crew members reached the island by gangplank, and were rescued later that day by a towboat. Explosion of the Moselle, Near Cincinnati, Ohio, April 25, 1838. The vessel was heading from St . In support of Louden's claim, what appeared to be a piece of an artillery shell was said to be recovered from the sunken wreck. Mississippi woman dies in boat crash on the Jourdan River | Biloxi Sun "It was like a tremendous bomb going off in the middle of where these men were," Potter says. However, Sultana was a coal-burning boat and not a wood-burner. During her time in port, and while the repairs were being made, Sultana took on the paroled prisoners. Capt. Bates, both eight-footers, arrive a, On April 18, 1949, at Verhagen Hall at St. Louis University a priest just back from a year of study at Harvard completed an exorcism after hea. Today, Potter describes the scene from a park along the banks of the Mississippi, just north of Memphis. 2 As rapidly as the number of steamboats increased, they could not keep pace with demand. Library of Congress In the early 1900s, the Mississippi River shifted about two miles to the east, leaving the wreck under about 15 feet of Arkansas soil.
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