Gene Eric Salecker - Destruction of the Steamboat Sultana: The Worst Maritime Disaster in American History

THE WORST MARITIME DISASTER

IN AMERICAN HISTORY

GENE ERIC SALECKER

NAVAL INSTITUTE PRESS

ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND

This book has been brought to publication with the generous assistance of the Sultana Disaster Museum in Marion, Arkansas.

Naval Institute Press,

291 Wood Road

Annapolis, MD 21402

2022 by Gene Eric Salecker

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Salecker, Gene Eric, 1957- author. | Naval Institute Press, publisher.

Title: Destruction of the Steamboat Sultana : the worst maritime disaster in American history / Gene Eric Salecker.

Description: Annapolis, Maryland : Naval Institute Press, [2021] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021049931 (print) | LCCN 2021049932 (ebook)

ISBN 9781682477434 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781682477441 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Sultana (Steamboat) | Steamboat disastersMississippi

RiverHistory19th century. | United StatesHistoryCivil War, 1861-1865Prisoners and prisons.

Classification: LCC E595.S84 S245 2021 (print) | LCC E595.S84 (ebook) | DDC 973.7/71dc23/eng/20211018

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021049931

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021049932

Print editions meet the requirements of ANSI/NISO z39.48-1992

(Permanence of Paper).

Printed in the United States of America.

30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

First printing

To my wife, Susan, and my father, Roy

In the early morning hours of April 27, 1865, the steamboat Sultana exploded, caught fire, and sank in the Mississippi River. Among her passengers the Sultana was carrying nearly two thousand newly released Union prisoners of war who were going home at last. Some of those men were killed in the explosion, others died in the fire, and many drowned in the icy waters of the river. But some survived to tell their stories.

The Sultana disaster left a great many questions unanswered: What caused the explosion? Exactly how many people were on board at the time? How many people survived, and how many people died? And, perhaps most perplexing of all, who were these people? Although a great many authors have tried to answer these questions over the past 150 years, most of them have relied on legends and unverified facts that grew up around the disaster. Very few of them examined the records in the National Archives in Washington, DC, looked through the handwritten transcripts of the three official bodies that investigated the disaster, or pored over the handwritten testimony from the court-martial of Capt. Frederic Speed, the only person tried for the disaster. Most authors take as fact the unverified information that has been passed down over the years, and as a result, a great deal of secondhand and thirdhand information has become established as part of the Sultana legend. I hope to change that.

In 1992, my friend Jerry O. Potter wrote his ground-breaking book, The Sultana Tragedy: Americas Greatest Maritime Disaster, using actual transcripts and material from the National Archives. When he was finished, he passed his material to me and encouraged me to write my own book. And so I did. In 1996, using Jerrys material as well as dozens of firsthand accounts I had gleaned from state archives and state libraries, my book Disaster on the Mississippi: The Sultana Explosion, April 27, 1865 was published. These two books are perhaps the best-researched books on the Sultana ever written.

As well researched as our books were, though, we got a few things wrong. In doing our research we physically had to go to the various archives and state libraries and pore over hundreds of pages of microfilm and microfiche. Inevitably, there were errors. Today, most of the sourcesnewspapers and government documents, including pension records and service recordshave been digitized and are available online. Researchers can sit at home and search burial records and headstone applications. It is now possible to write a work of historical nonfiction without ever leaving home. It is also much easier to look into the facts, myths, and legends surrounding the Sultana disaster.

In 2015, I began an exhaustive two-year search to determine conclusively how many people were on board the Sultana from April 24 to April 27, 1865; how many people perished in the disaster; and how many people survived. At the same time that I was researching the numbers connected with the Sultana I was also trying to determine the source of the facts and myths that are accepted as part of the official history of the Sultana disaster. By taking my investigation back to primary sources, I have been able to dispel many of those myths and also to add a great deal to the true story of the Sultana.

This work looks at the events, incidents, and people connected to the terrible disaster, and proves or disproves the facts, myths, and legends that have grown up around it. Wherever possible I have let those involvedthe paroled prisoners, civilian passengers, guards, crew members, rescuers, and eyewitnessestell their stories in their own words. I am hoping that the truth about the Sultana and the complete story of the disaster are finally told here.

Memphis area

Mississippi River area in the Middle South

As some particulars have been published of the destruction by fire, lately, of the steamer Sultana, on the Mississippi river, it may not be uninteresting to your readers to learn the whole of the circumstances as they occurred under the eye of one of her passengers. The New Albany Daily Ledger went on to quote this eyewitness: [S]omething like a thrill of horror came over me, as I looked around and saw the hideous fate we were escaping. By this time the fire had rapidly advanced, and the greater portion of the vessel was enveloped in flames. It was March 25, 1857, near Hickman, Kentucky. The entire steamboat burned to the waterline, although most of those on board were saved. The fourth steamboat named Sultana had come to a fiery end. It would be six years before another Mississippi steamboat carried the name Sultana.

The first steamboat named Sultana (a sultana is the wife or concubine of a sultan) was built in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1836 by Capt. A. W. Tufts. A fast boat, Sultana (No. 1) set a couple of speed records going between Louisville, Kentucky, and New Orleans, Louisiana. At the time she was retired in February 1843, Sultana (No. 1) had run the Mississippi for seven years, almost unheard of on a river where the average lifespan of a steamboat was between four and five years due to accidents, snags, or fire.