Sultana (steamboat)

Sultana

Sultana at Helena, Arkansas, on April 26, 1865, a day before her destruction. A crowd of paroled prisoners covers her decks.
History
Name:	Sultana
Owner:	Initially Capt. Pres Lodwick, then a consortium including Capt. J. Cass Mason
Port of registry:	United States
Route:	St. Louis to New Orleans
Builder:	John Litherbury Boatyard, Cincinnati
Launched:	January 3, 1863
In service:	1863
Fate:	Exploded and sank, April 27, 1865, on Mississippi River seven miles north of Memphis, Tennessee.
General characteristics
Tonnage:	1,719 tons
Length:	260 feet
Beam:	42 feet
Decks:	Four decks (including pilothouse)
Propulsion:	34 ft (10 m) diameter paddlewheels
Capacity:	376 passengers and cargo
Crew:	85

Sultana was a Mississippi River side-wheel steamboat. On April 27, 1865, the boat exploded in the worst maritime disaster in United States history. Although designed with a capacity for only 376 passengers, she was carrying 2,427 when three of the boat's four boilers exploded and she burned to the waterline and sank near Memphis, Tennessee, killing an estimated 1,700 passengers. This disaster was overshadowed in the contemporary press by other events, most particularly the killing on the previous day of President Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes Booth.

The wooden steamboat was constructed in 1863 by the John Litherbury Boatyard in Cincinnati, and intended for the lower Mississippi cotton trade. Registering 1,719 tons, the steamer normally carried a crew of 85. For two years, she ran a regular route between St. Louis and New Orleans, frequently commissioned to carry troops.

Under the command of Captain J. Cass Mason of St. Louis, Sultana left St. Louis on April 13, 1865, bound for New Orleans, Louisiana. On the morning of April 15, she was tied up at Cairo, Illinois when word reached the city that President Abraham Lincoln had been shot at Ford's Theater. Immediately, Mason grabbed an armload of Cairo newspapers and headed south to spread the news, knowing that telegraphic communication with the South had been almost totally cut off because of the war. Upon reaching Vicksburg, Mississippi, Mason was approached by Lt. Col. Reuben Hatch, the chief quartermaster at Vicksburg. Hatch had a deal for Mason. Thousands of recently released Union prisoners of war that had been held by the Confederacy at the prison camps of Cahaba near Selma, Alabama, and Andersonville, in southwest Georgia, had been brought to a small parole camp outside of Vicksburg to await release to the North. The U.S. government would pay $5 per enlisted man and $10 per officer to any steamboat captain that would take a group north. Knowing that Mason was in need of money, Hatch suggested that if he could guarantee Mason a full load of about 1,400 prisoners, Mason would guarantee to give Hatch a kickback. Hoping to walk away with a pocketful of cash, Mason quickly agreed to the offered bribe.