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Death on the Mississippi
In April 1865, the steamboat Sultana’s boilers burst shortly after passing Memphis on its way to Cairo, Illinois. The boat burned and sank. Aboard were nearly 2,200 passengers and crew. Of those aboard, 1,168 died. It was the deadliest maritime disaster in the United States. Not until Titanic sank in 1912 would another maritime disaster exceed Sultana’s death toll.
“Destruction of the Steamboat Sultana: The Worst Maritime Disaster in American History,” by Gene Eric Salecker, is a new book about the steamboat’s loss. Salecker, acknowledged as one of the two foremost authorities about the steamboat’s history, took a fresh look at the disaster starting in 2015. This book is the result. It is the most authoritative look at the event written to date.
Salecker has been studying Sultana for over 30 years. He collaborated closely with the other acknowledged authority on Sultana, Jerry O. Potter, during that time. This book is the product of seven years of fresh research, with Salecker revisiting archives and reexamining court-martials records, official investigations, and personal recollections of the event.
The result is a fascinating and detailed account of what happened. He follows the history of the boat, exploring what caused the boiler explosion. He also examines what caused a boat that should have been carrying no more than 600 passengers to be overloaded with three times that many. They were paroled Union prisoners-of-war, being repatriated North. Instead of being split among three available boats, they were all loaded into Sultana as part of a corrupt deal between Sultana’s captain and the quartermaster officer loading prisoners. Salecker showed how the subsequent investigation convicted a totally innocent officer who attempted to prevent the overloading.
Salecker strips away many myths about the disaster. Besides showing the innocence of the tragedy’s traditional villain, he identifies the true guilty parties, showing how they evaded responsibility. He definitively debunks the claim Sultana was sabotaged. He also pinpoints actual casualty totals, correcting exaggerated claims of deaths.
Despite Salecker’s attention to detail and obsessive pursuit of the facts, this is not a dry book. It reads like a cross between an adventure novel and a mystery. He captures the human drama behind the tragedy. Whether this is your first introduction to the Sultana disaster or you have followed it for years, this book is worth reading. It may not be the last word on the story, but it is an important one.
“Destruction of the Steamboat Sultana: The Worst Maritime Disaster in American History,” by Gene Eric Salecker, Naval Institute Press, 2022, 528 pages, $39.95 (Hardcover), $25.74 (ebook)
This review was written by Mark Lardas who writes at Ricochet as Seawriter. Mark Lardas, an engineer, freelance writer, historian, and model-maker, lives in League City, TX. His website is marklardas.com. It appeared in a different form in American Essence magazine and Epoch Times.
Published in History
The things I have never heard of . . . thank you for pointing out this bit of history. While the death toll is in the same range as Titanic, here we have a tragedy that does not capture people’s attention as much . . .
This draws attention to not just this steamboat sinking on the Mississippi but should serve to remind us of the great number of large sunken boats all along the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers with so much cargo which supplied the interior of the continent before the expansion of the railroads. Several are buried in what is now dry land because of the ever-changing course of the streams.
Oddly, it was the Titanic that knocked it out of popular memory. That is discussed in the book.
Just a nit, but isn’t it actually courts martial? Or courts-martial, maybe.
I saw a documentary on this recently. Fascinating and tragic story. Corruption in government has been a leading cause of death for a long time:(
Were the boat captains being paid by the passenger?
Got the title, or a link?
I’m deep in the throes of a disaster-on-the-high-seas reading spree (the Endurance, the Bounty, the Batavia, the Essex, etc.) Shall definitely add this one to the list. Thanks for the recommendation.
By head count? Yes. Hence the overcrowding.
By the individuals boarding? Only the civilians. The Federal government paid the fares for the former POWs and other soldiers.
It used to be courts martial, but common usage has changed it much the same way we say “mother-in-laws” . . .
But people seem to be reclaiming the correct “attorneys general” so maybe there’s hope.
I don’t know. I’ve seen “attorney generals” in a few news articles lately . . .
Baby steps…
At least they’re learning.