The official inquiry found that the boilers exploded because of the combined effects of careening, low water levels, and the faulty repair made a few days earlier.[16]. There was no manifest to record the names of passengers aboard the Princess at the time of the disaster. BHYHA on Instagram: "On this day in 1865The steamboat Sultana Sultana had tubular boilers filled with 24 horizontal five-inch flues. [citation needed] The next year, only one man showed up. The coal-burning steamboat was on a trip to Nasvhille, Tenn., via the Ohio and Cumberland rivers, when it sank at Grand Tower Island 80 miles below St. Louis on May 18, 1947. By August 1872 the count of steamboats under the Burlington Railroad Bridge was 147, while the 1,108 engines and trains crossed over that bridge during the same month. Then the traveler could go upstairs and eat at the main tables with the first-class passengers. [4]:197202 Captain George Williams, who had placed the men on board, was a regular Army officer, and the military refused to go after one of their own. Although the mechanic wanted to cut out and replace a ruptured seam, Mason knew such a job would take a few days and cost him his precious load of prisoners. 2. A potential reader should care about this story because it shows that greed and corruption in the government is not a new thing. River of History - Chapter 4 - Mississippi National River & Recreation Badger State (1844) steam paddle. Subscribe now and never hit a limit. Steamboat History: CAPE GIRARDEAU/GORDON C. GREENE The Mississippi was not as dangerous. While researching those numbers, I ran across other myths and legends that were incorrect or misleading, while at the same time verifying many of the stories. The broken wood caught fire and turned the remaining superstructure into a raging inferno. The steamboat business always had been a risky affair. "The boat had a legal carrying capacity of 376 passengers," he says, "and on its up-river trip it had over 2,500 aboard," in part because the government had agreed to pay $5 for each enlisted man and $10 for each officer who made the trip. The men located around the twin openings quickly crawled under the wreckage and down the main stairs. Frank Barton is the descendant of one of those Confederate soldiers, a man named Franklin Hardin Barton. Thousands of recently released Union prisoners of war who had been held in the Confederate prison camps at Cahaba and Andersonville had been brought to a small parole camp outside of Vicksburg to await release to the northern states. Morgan, James Morris. Immediately, Captain Mason grabbed an armload of Cairo newspapers and headed south to spread the news, knowing that telegraphic communication with the southern states had been almost totally cut off because of the recently-ended American Civil War. Some 1,700 returning Union Veterans died. Blackened wooden deck planks and timbers were found about 32 feet (10m) under a soybean field on the Arkansas side, about 4 miles (6km) from Memphis. Look for details such as clothing, technologies or buildings in old photographs to learn more about the past. [7] Many died of drowning or hypothermia. Dead trees fell into the river and got stuck on the bottom. The Sultana should be remembered because what happened to her need not have happened. Steamboats traveled into Iowa border waters even before Iowa was legally open for settlement. GES: I think the reporting of the Sultana disaster in April and May 1865 was pretty accurate. A sunken casino boat has been uncovered in the Mississippi as severe drought pushes water levels in the Memphis section of the river to record lows. Since most steamboats of the time were constructed of wood covered with paint and varnish, fires were a significant concern. These trips moved almost 5 million tons of lead down stream! Early western river navigation was always dangerous, but it was a necessity in order to ship supplies to U.S. Army frontier posts and civilian settlements. Freight and cargo were much more profitablealthough the movement of animals could be a backbreaking, smelly proposition! [32], In 1982, a local archaeological expedition, led by Memphis attorney Jerry O. Potter, uncovered what was believed to be the wreckage of Sultana. Despite even less reliable water depth than the border rivers, interior Iowa rivers (those rivers that do not border the state) also saw considerable steamboat travel. All rights reserved. Packed on board the riverboat Sultana when her boilers blew, recently freed Union POWs faced being consumed by flames or drowning in the Mississippi. Concussion swept away the infrastructure, and the upper cabins, state rooms, and hurricane deck collapsed inward. GES: Readers should care about the Sultana since it was the greatest maritime disaster in American history. William "Buck" Leyhe, who had sold Eagle Packet Co. the year before, waits for rescue on Grand Tower Island after the Golden Eagle sank. Marion, across the river from Memphis, Tenn., is near the spot where the 260-foot side-wheeler came to rest. Its clientele were among societys elite in the Lower Mississippi Valley. The disaster of the Princess near Baton Rouge in 1859 was a tragically typical example. Mrs. Lind's birthday cake was lost, but fellow evacuees serenaded her as morning sun warmed their island refuge. 1 was no longer used to manufacture boilers after 1879. [4]:198,200,202, Monuments and historical markers to Sultana and her victims have been erected at Memphis, Tennessee;[25] Muncie, Indiana;[26] Marion, Arkansas;[27] Vicksburg, Mississippi;[28] Cincinnati, Ohio;[29] Knoxville, Tennessee;[30] Hillsdale, Michigan[31] and Mansfield, Ohio. Unlike many of the nautical discoveries in. By Lieutenant Commander Ralph P. Dillon, U. S. Naval Reserve. Her two side-mounted paddle wheels were driven by four fire-tube boilers. The vessel measured 260 feet (79m) long, with a 42 feet (13m) width at the beam, displaced 1,719 short tons (1,559t), and had a 7-foot (2.1m) draft. Yet Captain Mason of the Sultana, and Captain Reuben Hatch, the chief quartermaster at Vicksburg, saw no problem in crowding as many men as possible on board the boat, hoping to reap the biggest profit possible. Or does it let would-be historians off the hook from paying their own dues for embarking on the composition of a piece of nonfiction? 19th-century American steamboat that sank on the Mississippi River in 1865. Whenever possible, I tried to dispel that myth. William H. "Buck" Leyhe of St. Louis at the wheel of the Golden Eagle steamboat in April 1939. By that standard, the loss of the Golden Eagle was a minor event. Captain Mason of Sultana, who was ultimately responsible for dangerously overloading his vessel and ordering the faulty repairs to her leaky boiler, had died in the disaster. Each fire-tube boiler was 18 feet (5.5m) long and 46 inches (120cm) in diameter and contained 24 five-inch (13cm) flues which ran from the firebox to the chimney.[3]. ", Discovery Gives New Ending To A Death At The Civil War's Close. William "Buck" Lehye, who sold the Golden Eagle one year before, and Mrs. Frank Lind, a lifelong fancier of steamboat travel.

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