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| Sultana on fire, from Harpers Weekly |
A maritime disaster where over One
thousand Five Hundred human Beings were lost, most of them being
exchanged prisoners of war on their way home after privation and
suffering from one to twenty-three months in Cahaba and Andersonville
prisons.
The steamer Sultana was built at
Cincinnati, Ohio, January, 1863, and was registered, as near as I can
learn, at 1,719 tons. She was a regular St Louis and New Orleans
packet, and left the latter port on her fatal trip April 21, 1865,
arriving at Vicksburg, Miss with about two hundred passengers and
crew on board. She remained here little more than one day; among
other things repairing one of her boilers, at the same time receiving
on board 1,965 federal soldiers and 35 oflicers just released from
the rebel prisons at Cahaba, Ala, Macon and Andersonville, Ga, and
belonging to the States of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Tennessee,
Kentucky, and West Virginia. Besides these there were two companies
of infantry under arms, making a grand total of 2,300 souls on board.
Sometime in the evening, probably well
towards midnight, the boat steamed across the river to the coal bins
or barges, and after taking on her supply of coal started on up the
river for Cairo, Ill. All was quiet and peaceful, many of the
soldiers, no doubt, after their long, unwilling fast in southern
prisons, were dreaming of home and the good things in store for them
there, but alas! those beautiful visions were dissipated by a
terrific explosion, for about two o'clock in the morning of the 27th,
as the boat was passing through a group of islands known as the 'Old
Hen and Chickens,' and while about opposite of Tagleman's Landing had
burst one of her boilers and almost immediately caught fire, for the
fragments of the boiler had cut the cabin and the hurricane deck in
two, and the splintered pieces had fallen, many of them back upon the
burning coal fires that were now left exposed.
The light dry wood of the cabins
burned like tinder, and it was but a short time ere the boat was
wrapped in flames, burning to the water's edge and sinking. Hundreds
were forced into the water and drowned in huge squads, those who
could swim being unable to get away from those who could not and
consequently perishing with them.
(Source: Loss of the Sultana and
Reminiscences of Survivors: History of a Disaster ...
By Chester D. Berry, D.D. Thorp, printer, 1892, Link) | ||
| Sultana Memorial at the Mount Olive Baptist Church Cemetery, Knoxville, Tennessee |
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Sultana Memorial at the Mount Olive Baptist Church Cemetery
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