2) The use of the sediment-laden Mississippi River water to feed the boilers. Explosion of the Steamboat Constitution, May 4, 1817, Point Coupee, Louisiana. In the early 1900s, the Mississippi River shifted about two miles to the east, leaving the wreck under about 15 feet of Arkansas soil. Most were Union soldiers, newly released from Confederate prison camps. "The river is at flood stage," he says as we watch a barge struggle to move up river, "very similar to what it was on April 27, 1865." Steamboats and flatboats brought thousands of early settlers to the new land of Iowa. Given as the "John Lithoberry Shipyard" on Ohio Historical Marker 1831 (1999) on the Ohio River at Sawyer Point. "It won't move!" Get up-to-the-minute news sent straight to your device. 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. Considered one of them was the biggest vessel ever to sail via the world. In 1929, only two men attended the southern reunion. However, the explosion of her boilers just above Memphis on 27 April 1865 put a terrible end to that endeavor. 2 likes, 0 comments - BHYHA (@bhyhapodcast) on Instagram: "On this day in 1865.The steamboat Sultana explodes on the Mississippi River near Memphis, killi." BHYHA on Instagram: "On this day in 1865.The steamboat Sultana explodes on the Mississippi River near Memphis, killing 1,700 passengers including many discharged Union soldiers. FS: Given the mistrust of any reporting from the press in some parts of our society today, how reliable would you say the reporting on these disasters was back in its day? [4]:62, Sultana spent two days traveling upriver, fighting against one of the worst spring floods in the river's history. 3) The design of the boilers. The Sultana sank in the Mississippi River near Marion, and over the years, the wreck was eventually covered with silt. 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. In his book, he builds a strong case against the boat's captain and co-owner, J. Cass Mason. He is currently a freelance writer living in Annapolis. An engraving of the Sultana explosion, published in Harpers Weekly, May 20, 1865. 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. After some time, the weakened twin smokestacks fell; the starboard smokestack fell backward into the blasted hole, and the port smokestack fell forward onto the crowded forward section of the upper deck, hitting the ship's bell as it fell. 2012 was additionally when the river was low sufficient to expose five steamboat wrecks along the Missouri River between St. Charles and Bridgeton. 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. Plowing upriver from New Orleans, the Natchez was the first steamboat to arrive on the scene. Persac, Marie Adrien (Artist). Capt. Lead was a very important export from the Dubuque area. Fortunately, the sturdy railings around the twin openings of the main stairway prevented the upper deck from crushing down completely onto the middle deck. Irregular river depth, sandbars and snags made steamboat travel on the Missouri slow and dangerous. Explosion and Burning of the Steamboat Teche on the Mississippi River, May 5, 1825. Golden Eagle's pilot house was salvaged. Mississippi River. As stated in the 1903 newspaper article, the log was mistakenly taken by Sultana. Mrs. Lind's birthday cake was lost, but fellow evacuees serenaded her as morning sun warmed their island refuge. But there were many other reasons the event didn't get much attention at the time. Poster 17" x 22". The most terrible steamboat disaster in history was probably the loss of the Sultana in 1865. Explosion of the Moselle, Near Cincinnati, Ohio, April 25, 1838. Aurora (1902) steam screw. Reuben Benton Hatch, an individual with a long history of corruption and incompetence, who kept his job through political connections: he was the younger brother of Illinois politician Ozias M. Hatch, an advisor and close friend of President Lincoln. Most of Sultana's officers, including Captain Mason, were among those who perished.[8]. By eliminating the manpower required to row or paddle, often against powerful currents, steamboats fueled an exponential growth in trade and development. Even after the Sultana disaster, steamboat captains continued to accept profit over safety, as shown by boats that exploded when crammed full of recent immigrants moving westward. The vessel was heading from St . Last chance! By the time the repairs would have been completed, the prisoners would have been sent home on other boats. It seemed that profit was the driving factor for most steamboat owners and captains. Steamboats on the Mississippi River The first steamboat on the Mississippi River along Iowa's border was the 109-ton Virginia, on its way to Fort Snelling (now Saint Paul, Minnesota) in May 1823. The ability to navigate these rivers was of great importance in the settlement of Iowa before railroads. At least thirty-nine passengers and crew members died in the accident. "The war had just ended a few weeks before," he says. Tucson: Fireship Press, 2009. All contents The Slate Group LLC. The Missouri History Museum had it on display from 1962 to 1996, and preserves it in storage. "A few weeks earlier, he might have been attacking the Sultana if it had come in.". [5] About ten hours south of Vicksburg, one of Sultana's four boilers sprang a leak. A crew member fished liquor bottles from the half-flooded bar. Blackened wooden deck planks and timbers were found about 32 feet (10m) under a soybean field on the Arkansas side, about 4 miles (6km) from Memphis. When railroads started carrying freight across the country, the days of the steamboats were over. The Sultana story is one of greed and corruption, as well as pathos and sadness. (Post-Dispatch), Ruth Ferris, assistant curator at the Missouri Historical Society (now the History Museum), displays the steering wheel in the Golden Eagle pilot house as it went on display in the museum on May 2, 1962. (Post-Dispatch), Capt. After the fall of Vicksburg and Port Hudson, Louisiana, in July 1863 and the opening of the Mississippi, the Sultana was used to bring cotton from parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas that were now under Union control up north so that it could be sent to Eastern manufacturers that had been starving for the raw material. Wolf River. The exact number of steamboat accidents in Iowa Rivers is not known. And, the cost of a stateroom was not based on the wealth of the traveler. All the examined boat wrecks were working vessels, towboats or barges, so the artifacts and other data gave a glimpse into the lives of river men on the Mississippi around the turn of the 20 th century. 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. I copied everything I could find, even though I may never use the material. [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. Effie Afton Hits the Bridge. Non-subscribers can read five free Naval History articles per month. While wealthy patrons might buy drinks all night at the bar, the bar was usually privately owned, with just a share of the profits going to the steamboat captain and/or owner. "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. Even amid the horrendous chaos, rescue efforts began immediately. Fire broke out and began to consume the remains. Steamboats collided or caught on fire. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. They'd stay in a motel at night, but she loved to cook for the crew and the men from the Coast Guard. 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. The Vault isSlates history blog. Burning of the Orline St. John, near Montgomery, Alabama, March 2, 1850. A look back at today in history as seen through our archives. The Sultanas tubular boilers, however, were harder to clean and could form pockets of sediment that could insulate a section of the tubes from the surrounding water and lead to overheating of the tubes. Morgan, James Morris. The steamboat needed a lot of steam power to pull away from the shore. Being so closely packed within the 48-inch (120cm) diameter boilers tended to cause the muddy sediment to form hot pockets and were extremely difficult to clean. 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. "He served in the 23rd Arkansas Cavalry, and he was tasked with, among other things, raiding ships going up and down the river," Frank Barton says. As the crew made sure the cargo was packed tightly, the captain blew the whistle. Yet Captain Mason of the Sultana, and Captain Reuben Hatch, the chief quartermaster at Vicksburg, saw no problem in crowding as many men as possible on board the boat, hoping to reap the biggest profit possible. Although designed with a capacity of only 376 passengers, she was carrying 2,130 when three of the boat's four boilers exploded and caused it to sink near Memphis, Tennessee. [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. Potter, the lawyer and author, grew up around Memphis, but didn't learn about the tragedy until the late 1970s, when he saw a painting of the ship in flames. Soldiers from Kentucky and Tennessee were among the first to die, he says, "because they'd been packed in next to the boilers. By that standard, the loss of the Golden Eagle was a minor event. A Look Back The day the Golden Eagle steamboat sank in 1947. 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. The last northern survivor, Private Jordan Barr of the 15th Michigan Volunteer Infantry Regiment, died on May 16, 1938, at age 93. The Sultana's captain and its chief engineer also allowed a mechanic to make a quick and inadequate repair to a damaged boiler, Potter says. Constructed of wood in 1863 by the John Litherbury Boatyard [1] in Cincinnati, Ohio, Sultana was intended for the lower Mississippi cotton trade. After days in flood stage, the Mississippi River appeared to be at crest in Lansing, Iowa Friday evening as the river has spent hours below the max daily crest. An estimated 1,800 people died, but few today have heard of this disaster. Why should potential readers care? He was a passenger on its trip to Nashville, Tenn. (Post-Dispatch), Passengers pass time on Grand Tower Island until they were picked up by a passing towboat. An interview with author Gene Eric Salecker. 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 . A year later, when the U.S. government established the Memphis National Cemetery[4]:206 on the northeast side of the city, the bodies were moved there. During the gold rush to Montana in the 1860s, steamboats traveled far up the Missouri to early mining towns. The Sultana tragedies seem to be classic examples of putting profit over safety. The giant paddle wheel started turning faster. Its dining room was graced with chandeliers and red carpet. Investigation Tip: 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. The city of Marion is the closest city to the wreck site and is also the home to a number of descendants of people who aided in the rescue of the Sultana victims. GES: I am a bit ambivalent about that. 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 . In the end, no one was ever held accountable for what remains the deadliest maritime disaster in United States history. Dropping water levels could cause hot spots leading to metal fatigue, significantly increasing the risk of an explosion. Crew members roused passengers and swung a gangplank onto land. The Montana was a Mississippi and Missouri River stern-wheel steamboat, one of three "mega-steamboats" built in 1879 during the steamboat era on the Missouri. The steamer registered 1,719 tons[2] and normally carried a crew of 85. But, no, the ice cream cone wasn't invented there. 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. "At 2 a.m., one of the boilers exploded, resulting in two other boilers exploding," Potter says. yet the tragedy got very few headlines. A tall mirror glistened behind the walnut bar. The Sultana was launched from Cincinnati in 1863. The Chicago Opera Troupe, a minstrel group that had traveled upriver on Sultana before getting off at Memphis, staged a benefit performance, while the crew of the gunboat Essex raised US$1,000 (equivalent to $17,702 in 2021) [14], In December 1885, the survivors living in the northern states of Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio began attending annual reunions, forming the National Sultana Survivors' Association. Barrett was a veteran of the MexicanAmerican War and had been captured at the Battle of Franklin. ", Jerry Potter, lawyer and author of The Sultana Tragedy. "They had survived prison in one of the most hideous places the South had. 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. Long before Kanesville or Council Bluffs were settlements on the Missouri river, the steamboat the Western Engineer arrived in the area in 1819. The Mississippi River has changed course several times since the disaster, leaving the wreck under dry land and far from today's river. By 1857, St. Paul had become a bustling port, with over 1,000 steamboat arrivals each year by some 62 to 99 boats. Lloyd, James T. Lloyds Steamboat Directory and Disasters on the Western Waters. 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. Its clientele were among societys elite in the Lower Mississippi Valley. So on the 150th anniversary of the sinking, the city of Marion, Ark., is trying to make sure the Sultana will be remembered. 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. Steamboats ultimately carried more men and freight in the Civil War than the faster and more expensive railroads. (Post-Dispatch), The Golden Eagle heads downstream at St. Louis on May 14, 1940. Early western river navigation was always dangerous, but it was a necessity in order to ship supplies to U.S. Army frontier posts and civilian settlements. 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 paddle wheel fell off of one side, caused the boat to turn sideways; the other paddle wheel fell off.". 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. Instead, newspaper accounts say Franklin Barton saved several Union soldiers. By Lieutenant Commander Ralph P. Dillon, U. S. Naval Reserve. The main channel now flows about 2 miles (3km) east of its 1865 position. On April 27, 1865, a steamboat named the Sultana exploded and sank while transporting Union soldiers up the Mississippi. Both groups met as close to the April 27 anniversary date as possible, corresponded with each other, and shared the title National Sultana Survivors' Association. HEROINE. 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. . 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. Hersey and many others died instantly in a blast of scalding steam. By Commander Robert Frank Bennett, U. S. Coast Guard. The broken wood caught fire and turned the remaining superstructure into a raging inferno. The cost for a stateroom fare was marginal when compared to the amount that could be gained by carrying freight and goods. 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 . Although they knew that the water above Cairo was cleaner, the only problem they thought they faced by the dirtier lower Mississippi water was that they had to clean their boilers more often. On a landscape lacking roads but braided with bayous and rivers, travel via water was the only efficient means of transportation. [4]:12 On the morning of April 15, she was tied up at Cairo, Illinois, when word reached the city that U.S. President Abraham Lincoln had been shot in Washington, D.C. (You can unsubscribe anytime), Courtesy of The Historic New Orleans Collection, Steamboat Princess. There is no apparent motive for him to have blown up the boat, especially while on board. The Golden Eagle's new St. Louis-based owners left it to the river's mercy. The Nick Wall, named for a noteworthy Missouri River riverboat captain, was a 338-ton sternwheel paddleboat built in 1869 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The U.S. government would pay US$2.75 per enlisted man and US$8 per officer to any steamboat captain who would take a group north. [citation needed], By the mid-1920s, only a handful of survivors could attend the reunions. 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. They tended to report what others thought these findings meant, but they very rarely added their own input, one way or another. As shown in my book, when steam navigation of American waterways first began, there were very little, if any, laws for safety. 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. Many bodies were never recovered. The flaming hull drifted onto a shoreline sandbar and grounded. During the Civil War steamboats carried Iowa soldiers, weapons and food supplies to army posts. Introduced in 1848, they could generate twice as much steam per fuel load as conventional boilers. And the shrapnel, the steam and the boiling water killed hundreds. The first steamboat on the Mississippi River along Iowas border was the 109-ton Virginia, on its way to Fort Snelling (now Saint Paul, Minnesota) in May 1823. 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. The number of people killed instantly or who drowned or died as a result of their injuries was variously estimated from seventy to two hundred; the actual number was likely closer to the smaller figure. It went upward at a 45-degree angle, tearing through the crowded decks above and completely destroying the pilothouse, instantly killing Captain Mason. Although sediment settled in the bottom of even the flue boilers, it was never thought to be much of a hazard. The ill-fated Sultana in Helena, Ark., just before it exploded on April 27, 1865, with about 2,500 people aboard. The Missouri History Museum displayed it from 1962 to 1996 and preserves it in storage. It's estimated between 300 and 400 boats have sunk along the Missouri River. 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. Look for details such as clothing, technologies or buildings in old photographs to learn more about the past. 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. Tubular boilers were discontinued from use on steamboats plying the Lower Mississippi after two more steamboats with tubular boilers exploded shortly after the Sultana explosion. Whenever possible, I tried to dispel that myth. Almost all were Union soldiers who had survived the . However, the Upper Rapids and Lower Rapids were serious obstacles to navigate. The Worst Marine Disaster in U. S. History. All 25 soldiers were rescued, historians say, and the Fogelman home became a refuge for Sultana survivors. The temporary museum it has created near City Hall includes pictures, personal items from soldiers, pieces of the Sultana, and a 14-foot replica of the boat. The rest can be gotten through the internet, which can be a positive thingif done correctly. The men located around the twin openings quickly crawled under the wreckage and down the main stairs. Louis.". Only six years before, it had foundered in the river near Chester, Ill., with one crew member lost. The power of the boilers came with risk - the water levels in the fire tubes had to be carefully maintained at all times. GES: Readers should care about the Sultana since it was the greatest maritime disaster in American history. 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. The disaster of the Princess near Baton Rouge in 1859 was a tragically typical example. Aunt Letty (1855) steam paddle. Newspaper accounts indicate that the residents of Memphis had sympathy for the victims despite the ongoing Union occupation. Leyhe died in 1956 in St. Louis at 83. The museum also features many artifacts from the Sultana Survivor's Association, as well as a fourteen-foot model replica of the boat. Paskoff, Paul F. Troubled Waters: Steamboat Disasters, River Improvements, and American Public Policy, 18211860. Fred Schultz has been in the publishing business since 1980 and was editor-in-chief ofNaval History from 1993-2005. Bodies of victims continued to be found downriver for months, some as far as Vicksburg. By the 1830s steamboats had navigated the Missouri River to the mouth of the Yellowstone River. William "Buck" Lehye, who sold the Golden Eagle one year before, and Mrs. Frank Lind, a lifelong fancier of steamboat travel. The violent explosion flung some deck passengers into the water and blew a gaping 2530 foot hole in the steamer. He died in 1871, having escaped justice because of his numerous highly placed patronsincluding two presidents. No one seemed to question the danger of a steamboat race until there was an accident or . An estimated 1,800 people died in the explosion and ensuing fire more than died in the sinking of the Titanic. Survivors panicked and raced for the safety of the water, but in their weakened condition, they soon ran out of strength and began to cling to each other. Subscribe with this special offer to keep reading, (renews at {{format_dollars}}{{start_price}}{{format_cents}}/month + tax). In the early 1900s, the Mississippi River shifted about two miles to the east, leaving the wreck under about 15 feet of Arkansas soil. Sign up for our newsletter to keep reading. hide caption. From 1817 to 1871, about 5,600 people died on Mississippi River wrecks of all sorts, including burst boilers, collisions and fires. 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. Some survivors were plucked from the tops of semi-submerged trees along the Arkansas shore. Since most steamboats of the time were constructed of wood covered with paint and varnish, fires were a significant concern.
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