Sultana – Tragic Mississippi Cruise

Marek Grzybowski

The most tragic passenger ship disaster in the history of the United States took place two hours after midnight on April 27, 1865. On the evening of that day, it turned out that most of the soldiers and civilians had died. The scale of the tragedy was so great that after the Titanic disaster, the steamer was called the “Titanic of the Mississippi”.

The boilers of the SS Sultana side-wheeler exploded and the steamer sank in flames on the Mississippi River. There were about 2,500 passengers on board, mainly soldiers returning after the end of the Civil War. About 1,700 people died – recalls the Sultana Disaster Museum. As a result of the boiler explosion and fire, the side-wheeler disintegrated, the passengers fell overboard and were carried away by the swift current of the river. This was a time when the Mississippi created large floods caused by the spring surge of waters. The remains of the ship drifted near the banks of Arkansas. The Sultana Disaster Museum provides a broad history of the disaster and its context. There are also numerous stories from people who experienced it and accounts from survivors.

The SS Sultana was built in a shipyard in Cincinnati and sailed into the Mississippi at the end of the Civil War, in 1863. It was, for its time, a modern sidewheeler, whose wheels were powered by steam from 4 modern steam boilers. The ship was over 80 m long and 12 m wide. The steam and the drive of two 10-meter wheels allowed it to sail at a speed of 12 knots. 376 passengers could travel in the cabins. The ship with a displacement of about 1,800 tons was operated by an 85-person crew.

The evacuation began in mid-April 1865. Over 2,000 soldiers decided to go from Vicksburg to towns located in the upper reaches of the Mississippi. Many of them were sick and wounded men. – dressed in dirty and torn clothes, walked down the cliff to the steamboat waiting at the port on the Mississippi River – writes Alan Huffman of “Mississippi History Now”.

Situated on the Mississippi, Vicksburg was a city devastated by the American Civil War. The men who were to board the ship were similarly devastated. Almost all of those who boarded the steamer Sultana were Union soldiers. Captured by Confederate troops, they were sent to prisoner-of-war camps in Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi. Among those boarding the ship were boys as young as 14. “Boys could enlist, usually as musicians, with parental consent, but some enlisted as soldiers. Not all boarded the SS Sultana at Vicksburg.

Escape from the War
-I boarded the steamer Henry Ames at Vicksburg, with about 2,100 men on board, returning from the rebel prisons. I remained on that ship until we reached Memphis, where we landed. Assuming I would stay for a while, I went into town to look around and buy a few necessities, and while I was gone the ship sailed and I stayed on shore. In the evening the steamer Sultana arrived, loaded with another group of prisoners, and I boarded with the intention of going to Benton Barracks and joining the comrades I had left on the Henry Ames, recalls Private Eppenetus Washington McIntosh, Company E, 14th Illinois Infantry.

During the Civil War, the SS Sultana made regular trips between St. Louis and New Orleans with Southern troops. The Sultana carried civilians fleeing the fighting. Because of the poor road infrastructure along the Mississippi Valley, riverboats were used to transport troops and equipment to units. They carried items such as cotton, sugar, food, and other goods needed in the cities and on the battlefield.

One of the routine voyages began on April 21, 1865. The Sultana left New Orleans with a hundred passengers on board. The ship was under the command of Captain James C. Mason. He agreed to fill the vessel beyond capacity upon reaching the next port. In Vicksburg, the steamer filled with refugees was loaded with a cargo of sugar. Below deck were 100 barrels of sugar, each weighing 800 kg. Several dozen horses and mules, a hundred pigs and… an alligator in a crate – the mascot of the ship’s captain – were also loaded onto the ship. Captain Mason did not do his job selflessly. After the Civil War, the government financed compensation in the amount of $5 for each private and $10 for each Union officer transported by ship from the south to the north of the country – explains Piotr Dróżdż in the description of the disaster.

Sultana was designed to carry up to 375 passengers and crew. “There were already about 180 passengers and crew on board, but when more than 2,000 paroled prisoners, their Union Army guards, a few Confederate soldiers returning home, and members of the United States Sanitary Commission came on board,” reports Mississippi History Now. Alan Huffman notes that “the ship left Vicksburg with about 2,400 aboard—more than six times its capacity. There was standing room only. Many of the released prisoners were so ill or seriously injured that they had to be carried on board.”

One of the boilers malfunctioned while on the portage. The Sultana’s fire tube boilers required a steady water supply, a full system, and constant monitoring of steam temperatures. The damaged boiler was removed from the propulsion system, and a local engineer was called in to Vicksburg for an expert opinion. He recommended that the boiler be repaired. The captain decided to continue the voyage. It headed for Memphis, where it docked on April 26. Some of the cargo was unloaded, and a group of soldiers decided to have fun in the local dives. Some of them did not make it to the ship, which sailed after midnight. A large number of passengers were getting ready for bed.

The Voyage to Tragedy
– The Sultana… pulled up the gangplanks, and while we were sailing along so sweetly, I and a few of my dining-room companions thought we would choose a spot and sleep. We went around the outside of the middle deck railing and spread out our blankets, made our beds, took off our clothes, hats, and coats, and laid them on the bed. We lay as close together as we could – recalled Isaac Noah Davenport, Company C, 7th Tennessee Cavalry (quoted in Sultana Disaster Museum).

The SS Santana rounded the bend after about an hour. The captain tacked against the current of the river, which was being increased by the inflow of melting snow. Davenport recalled, “I had not slept long when I was awakened by a loud noise and a loud crushing, squealing and screaming, and now, my dears, I tell you, it was the most terrifying sight I ever saw. Two men jumped overboard like sheep and ran as if wolves were after them. Several were drowning, several were burning, several were in a panic after the explosion and were screaming for help. Several were killed instantly, several were scared to death, several were carried away.

I was slightly wounded by a piece of wood thrown by the explosion. Two of my comrades were lying dead on either side of me. One of them was crushed, his name was Isaac Smith [Private Isaac Smith, Company C, 7th TN Cav.], and he said, ‘Boys, I am dead.’ I never saw him again, for then he fell into the river.” A leak in the superheated steam pipes caused the Sultana’s boilers to explode. The bridge, the cabin with the wounded, and the lifeboat were destroyed. The captain of the ship died. The boilers torn apart caused hot water to spill onto the decks and burning coals to spill from the furnaces. Hot water and burning parts of the ship fell on the sleeping passengers. Some died instantly as a result of the explosion. The wooden ship was burning in several places.

– Some passengers burned on the ship. The lucky ones clung to debris in the river or to horses and mules that had escaped the ship, hoping to reach the shore, which they could not see because it was dark and the flooded river was almost five miles wide at that point – writes Alan Huffman.

Out of about 2,400 people, about 1,700 war-weary soldiers and civilians died. Many publications emphasize that the SS Sultana fire remains the worst shipwreck in American history. More people died here than in 1912, when the Titanic sank. Given the conditions and circumstances in which the disaster occurred, there are important reasons why the Sultana disaster has not been well explained.

The Civil War had just ended, and President Abraham Lincoln had been assassinated, and the day before the Sultana disaster, Lincoln’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth, had been killed. In addition, the American public was accustomed to the numerous reports of large-scale casualties resulting from battles between the North and South. The steamboat disaster was not even big news in the American press. The SS Sultana disaster is rarely mentioned in history books. The victims and the event are best commemorated by the SULTANA DISASTER MUSEUM, which tells the story of the worst shipwreck in U.S. history.

Sources: SULTANA DISASTER MUSEUM,

The museum is located in Marion, Arkansas. A film about the event: