On a landscape lacking roads but braided with bayous and rivers, travel via water was the only efficient means of transportation. Surviving the Worst: The Wreck of the Sultana at the End of the - MS Shipwrecks - Inland Waterways - WI Shipwrecks Instead, newspaper accounts say Franklin Barton saved several Union soldiers. Explosion and Burning of the Steamboat Teche on the Mississippi River, May 5, 1825. The men located around the twin openings quickly crawled under the wreckage and down the main stairs. Probably the most interesting of the wrecks are Vessel No. I copied everything I could find, even though I may never use the material. Now, through the use of the internet, people can search hundred, perhaps thousands, of newspapers, from the United States as well as from around the world. Mississippi River's low water level reveals shipwreck, apparently a William "Buck" Lehye, who sold the Golden Eagle one year before, and Mrs. Frank Lind, a lifelong fancier of steamboat travel. A USS Abeona Andy Gibson (steamboat) USS Antelope (1861) USS Arizona (1858) B USC&GS Baton Rouge (1875) USS Black Hawk (1848) C USS Cincinnati (1861) City-class ironclad CSS Colonel Lovell The Nick Wall, named for a noteworthy Missouri River riverboat captain, was a 338-ton sternwheel paddleboat built in 1869 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The vessel was heading from St . You can see the wreck in low water just north of the Eads Bridge. The Sultana was especially helpful to the Union forces under General Ulysses S. Grant as he moved to capture Vicksburg, Mississippi, and open the Mississippi River to Union navigation. Fogelman's ancestors didn't have any boats to reach the trapped soldiers, so they improvised. . All Rights Reserved. Students tour the pilot house of the Golden Eagle on display at the U.S. Army Engineers base at the foot of Arsenal Street on Jan. 4, 1948. 1, a wooden model barge, and Vessel No. On May 19, 1947, the Golden Eagle left St. Louis on the Mississippi River and headed for Nashville. History of steamboats on the Mississippi: Lloyd's Directory of Disasters. Although brought up on courts-martial charges, Hatch managed to get letters of recommendation from no less reputable personages than President Lincoln and General Ulysses S. Grant. Steamboats brought supplies to the new Iowans and transported their produce and products to market. In 1859, the Blackhawk made 29 round trips between Cedar Rapids and Waterloo on the Cedar River. I do not feel that it lets would-be historians off the hook as long as they go the extra mile and gather the basic facts, etc., through diligent leg work. The Capt. Steamboats on the River | Iowa PBS Morgan, James Morris. You have permission to edit this article. Author Q&ADestruction of the Steamboat Sultana GES: I am a bit ambivalent about that. [4]:7985, While the Sultana burned, and the men on the steamboat were either already dead or fighting for their lives, the southbound steamer Bostona (No. The train derailed in Crawford County at about 12:15 p.m. Two of the train's three locomotives and an unknown number of cars . Aurora (1902) steam screw. WASHINGTON -- If the U.S. Senate has its way, a 90-year-old steamboat will soon be able to return to the Mississippi River. Steamboat Disasters Tucson: Fireship Press, 2009. He has conducted interviews with some 75 high-profile people, including historians, government officials, combat veterans, journalists, explorers, and Hollywood stars. Down Yonder On The Yazoo - The Waterways Journal That meant another expensive trip and more time. I had learned so much more, and collected so many more first-person accounts from the people on board, from the rescuers, and from the people involved, that I knew I had to write a new tell-all book that would dispel, as well as verify, all of the stories, rumors, and myths surrounding the disaster. Unlike many of the nautical discoveries in. Last chance! The location of the explosion, from the top rear of the boilers and far away from the fireboxes, tends to indicate that Louden's claim of sabotage of an exploding coal torpedo in the firebox was pure bravado. The exact death toll is unknown, although the most recent evidence indicates that 1,169 died. A Look Back The day the Golden Eagle steamboat sank in 1947 The steamboat sank shortly after it struck submerged rocks at 2:20 a.m. All 91 passengers and crew members reached the island by gangplank, and were rescued later that day by a towboat. FROM THE VAULT: Rollin' on the River - The Vicksburg Post The Mississippi River has changed course several times since the disaster, leaving the wreck under dry land and far from today's river. {{start_at_rate}} {{format_dollars}} {{start_price}} {{format_cents}} {{term}}, {{promotional_format_dollars}}{{promotional_price}}{{promotional_format_cents}} {{term}}, Cardinals send prized prospect Jordan Walker to Class AAA in curious series of moves, Rudderless ship of chaos: St. Louis judge advances Kim Gardner contempt case, What Oliver Marmols gamble in ninth vs. LA reveals about managing to spark Cardinals, How sending Jordan Walker to Class AAA is a bet clarity can correct muddled outfield: Cardinals Extra, Messenger: Kim Gardner drives the judicial bus over her employees and into the ditch, A closer on ice. [4]:2728, Upon reaching Vicksburg, Mississippi, Mason was approached by Captain Reuben Hatch, the chief quartermaster at Vicksburg, with a proposal. While wealthy patrons might buy drinks all night at the bar, the bar was usually privately owned, with just a share of the profits going to the steamboat captain and/or owner. All 25 soldiers were rescued, historians say, and the Fogelman home became a refuge for Sultana survivors. Designed to carry both freight and passengers, packet boats ranging from palatial Mississippi River sidewheelers to the smaller steamers common on rivers like the Cumberland or the Tennessee played a central role in the development of the inland rivers economy. It was the last wooden-hulled passenger boat to travel the Mississippi. 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. [4]:7479. The Princess ran weekly round trips from New Orleans to Vicksburg, Mississippi and back, departing the New Orleans wharf promptly at 5 p.m. every Tuesday. There were 10 passengers on board. The forward part of the upper deck collapsed onto the middle deck, killing and trapping many in the wreckage. The disaster was overshadowed in the press by events surrounding the end of the Civil War, including the killing of President Abraham Lincoln's assassin John Wilkes Booth just the day before. ", Ancestry.com, Texas Death Certificates, 19031980, Jennings, Pat "What Happened to the Sultana? 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. The last Iowa steamboat to carry goods was the coal fired sternwheeler the Loan Star in 1967. Beneath Tennessee River, Steamboat Wreckage Presents Mystery Once the driving force of the southeast Tennessee city's economic growth, Chattanooga's riverfront is home to just the 10th shipwreck recorded in state history - a boat whose story time forgot. Badger State (1844) steam paddle. Explosion and Burning of the Steamboat Teche on the Mississippi River, May 5, 1825., Explosion of the Helen McGregor, At Memphis, Tennessee, February 24, 1830., Terrific Explosion of the Steamboat Ben Franklin, at Mobile, Alabama, March 13, 1836.. Built in New Albany, Indiana, in 1832, the steamboat Heroine plied the Ohio and Mississippi from its launch in that year until in 1838 a navigation disaster left it beneath the waters of the Red River. Captain Frederic Speed, a Union officer who sent the 1,953 paroled prisoners into Vicksburg from the parole camp, was charged with grossly overcrowding Sultana and found guilty. Low Mississippi River ranges expose sunken WWII ship - Dailynationtoday "They had survived war," O'Neal says. Who Was John Wilkes Booth Before He Became Lincoln's Assassin. FS: Your handling of how the owners and crews of these vessels seemed to have not factored in the reality that dirty river water was not suitable for being used to create steam, and thus propulsion. Steamboat History: CAPE GIRARDEAU/GORDON C. GREENE Terrific Explosion of the Steamboat Ben Franklin, at Mobile, Alabama, March 13, 1836. What the reader needs to know is that Captain Hatch, who had been corrupt throughout the war, would not have been there if not for some influential friends and relatives in the government, including President Abraham Lincoln. An epilogue to Tennessee steamboating came in the 1970s with the return of the pleasure sternwheeler to the Mississippi, Cumberland, and Tennessee Rivers. Then the traveler could go upstairs and eat at the main tables with the first-class passengers. Beneath Tennessee River, Steamboat Wreckage Presents Mystery [19][20] Thomas Edgeworth Courtenay, the inventor of the coal torpedo, was a former resident of St. Louis and was involved in similar acts of sabotage against Union shipping interests. Buried treasure: Long lost Steamboat Malta found under Missouri - KMBC Author Q&ADestruction of the Steamboat Sultana, Fred Schultz has been in the publishing business since 1980 and was editor-in-chief of. A sister boat to the famous Natchez, the Princess had undergone a thorough retrofitting the previous summer and was said to be one of the fastest and most luxurious craft on the Mississippi River. from 1993-2005. More passengers boarded at Baton Rouge including a number of politicians fresh from the state legislative session that had just ended early for the holiday. Among other St. Louisans along for the ride was Capt. FS: Tell us why the Sultana Disaster Museum is located in Marion, Arkansas. In 2015, after I retired, I decided to look at all the known lists to discover who was actually on the Sultana and how many lived and died. The owners of the Effie Afton decided to take the railroad companies that had built the bridge to court. 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. The huge boats could carry many passengers and large amounts of freight. BNSF said in a statement that two of . A freight train carrying hazardous materials derailed in southwestern Wisconsin on Thursday, injuring four employees and sending two containers into the Mississippi River. (Post-Dispatch), The Golden Eagle moored on the St. Louis riverfront in May 1946. Among its owners on that day was Herman Pott, St. Louis boatbuilder. [21], Two years earlier, in May 1886, came a claim that 2nd Lt. James Worthington Barrett, an ex-prisoner and passenger on the steamboat, had caused the explosion. No one seemed to question the danger of a steamboat race until there was an accident or . The Princess was about six miles below Baton Rouge at Conrads Point when a teenage boy watching the boat glide along from a distance noted, A great column of white smoke suddenly went up from her and she burst into flames. The explosion was cataclysmic as all four huge boilers burst at once. [7] Many died of drowning or hypothermia. Given as the "John Lithoberry Shipyard" on Ohio Historical Marker 1831 (1999) on the Ohio River at Sawyer Point. While the Titanic caused more deaths, the great ocean liner was a British vessel and carried people from several different countries. Even after the Sultana disaster, steamboat captains continued to accept profit over safety, as shown by boats that exploded when crammed full of recent immigrants moving westward. MALTA BEND, Mo. (Post-Dispatch), Capt. 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. [4]:146147,168176, Passengers who survived the initial explosion had to risk their lives in the icy spring runoff of the Mississippi or burn with the boat. As the steamboat made her way north following the twists and turns of the river, she listed severely from side to side. The story of the Sultana isn't well-known even among people who live along the Mississippi. Yet, shortly after my 1996 book came out, a cabal of people sprang up touting the sabotage theory once again. Mississippi River. A Brief History of Steamboat Racing in the U.S. | History| Smithsonian "The wind blew the fire to the rear, burned that out," Frank Fogelman says. Passing boats and bystanders on both sides of the Mississippi helped pull survivors from the muddy water. [8], In 2015, on the 150th anniversary of the disaster, an interim Sultana Disaster Museum was opened in Marion, Arkansas, the closest town to the buried remains of the steamboat,[citation needed] across the Mississippi River from Memphis. During her time in port, and while the repairs were being made, Sultana took on the paroled prisoners. Via History.com The steamboat Sultana explodes on the Mississippi River near Memphis, killing 1,700 passengers including many discharged Union soldiers. Privacy Policy. Steamboat Disasters - Encyclopedia of Arkansas A look back at today in history as seen through our archives. Through the corruption of Captain Reuben Hatch, a Union officer at Vicksburg, Mississippi, and the captain of the Sultana, James Cass Mason, those 2,000 ex-prisoners were crowded onto a boat with a legal carrying capacity of only 376 passengers. Burning of the Orline St. John, near Montgomery, Alabama, March 2, 1850. Dead trees fell into the river and got stuck on the bottom. I then decided that since it had been 25 years since the publication of my first book, I needed to put out a new book on the Sultana. All the examined boat wrecks were working vessels, towboats or barges, so the artifacts and other data gave a glimpse into the lives of river men on the Mississippi around the turn of the 20 th century. An engraving of the Sultana explosion, published in Harpers Weekly, May 20, 1865. A potential reader should care about this story because it shows that greed and corruption in the government is not a new thing. The boat was 260 feet long and had an authorized capacity of 376 passengers and crew. FS: Which cargo would you say was more important and most profitablethe goods and materials or the obviously wealthy patrons who were there just for a glamorous boat ride? Maintaining a posted schedule was important in the competitive business of steamboat commerce. The Eclipse was a steamboat that struck a snag on the Mississippi River near Osceola (Mississippi County) on September 12, 1925; a deckhand and a passenger lost their lives in the accident. The Vault isSlates history blog. It has been going on for centuries. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. The Sultana made it only a few miles north of Memphis. It was her 82nd birthday. Fred Schultz has been in the publishing business since 1980 and was editor-in-chief ofNaval History from 1993-2005. Although the patched boiler was not the cause of the disaster, it was certainly indicative that the Sultana had faulty boilers. Barrels of flour were emptied on the ground, and the terribly burned victims were rolled in it and placed in the shade. [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. The May 9, 1989 the Des Moines Register newspaper listed 40 known sunken steamboats from the southwest corner of Iowa north just over 100 miles to Sioux City. At some places, the river overflowed the banks and spread out three miles wide. Contains photos of War Eagle and steamer Reindeer. Sign up for our newsletter to keep reading. Between 1823 and 1848, 365 boats made 7,645 trips. "And the entire center of the boat erupted like a volcano.". During the 1850s, traffic soared. Most river travel was between the years of 1846 and 1866. The Hayne was sold in 1908 to C.J. The Sultana Disaster | American Battlefield Trust The stops were reversed on the downstream journey as passengers, mail, and tons of freight including four-hundred-pound bales of cotton were loaded and unloaded. Then, once some laws were passed, they were generally ignored. Steamboat Travel Was Dirty And Dangerous, Especially On The Missouri River That day, he says, the water was moving very quickly and contained a lot of trees and other debris. However, Courtenay's great-great-grandson, Joseph Thatcher, who wrote a book on Courtenay and the coal torpedo, denies that a coal torpedo was used in the Sultana disaster. THIS DAY IN HISTORY - Union soldiers die in steamship explosion - 1865 The Worst Marine Disaster in U. S. History. GRAND TOWER, ILL. It was the first trip of the season for the Golden Eagle, an antique steamboat with twin stacks, gingerbread woodwork and a splashing sternwheel. 2) The use of the sediment-laden Mississippi River water to feed the boilers. Soldiers from Kentucky and Tennessee were among the first to die, he says, "because they'd been packed in next to the boilers. At around 2:00AM on April 27, 1865, when Sultana was about seven miles (11km) north of Memphis, its patched boiler suddenly and violently exploded, killing 400-500 men instantly. Then the captain did his best to steer around the dead trees, but sometimes they were hidden underwater. 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. Bad storms hit the river in the summer. [9] In February 1867, the Bureau of Military Justice placed the death toll at 1,100. [10] In 1880, the United States Congress, in conjunction with the War Department, reported the loss of life as 1,259. Today, Potter describes the scene from a park along the banks of the Mississippi, just north of Memphis. Fortunately, the sturdy railings around the twin openings of the main stairway prevented the upper deck from crushing down completely onto the middle deck. Shewas a sidewheel Mississippi steamboat carrying nearly 2,000 releasedUnion prisoners-of-war back north at the end of the Civil War. Library of Congress "The war had just ended a few weeks before," he says. So on the 150th anniversary of the sinking, the city of Marion, Ark., is trying to make sure the Sultana will be remembered. Cardinals latest, deflating loss compounds concerns, Man shot, killed near Kiener Plaza in downtown St. Louis, What was Andrew Knizner thinking? In a seeming paradox of frontier boosterism, Lloyds book sold this terrible recent history of the Mississippi as a romantic feature of the area. "They had survived prison in one of the most hideous places the South had. New York: Dover Maritime, 1994. The remains of a ship on the banks of the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge, La., on Oct. 17, 2022, after recently being revealed due to the low water level. Of this group, there were only 31 deaths between April 28 and June 28. "It's clear that he had bribed an officer at Vicksburg to ensure that he would get a large load of prisoners," Potter says. "At 2 a.m., one of the boilers exploded, resulting in two other boilers exploding," Potter says. Being so closely packed within the 48-inch (120cm) diameter boilers tended to cause the muddy sediment to form hot pockets and were extremely difficult to clean. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2007. An estimated 1,800 people died, but few today have heard of this disaster. Heroine (steamboat) | The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture Train derails in Wisconsin, plunging 2 containers into the Mississippi Nathan Smith of Normandy, Mo., the pilot of the Golden Eagle when it sank on May 18, 1947, as he prepared to testify two days later at a Coast Guard hearing on the accident in downtown St. Louis. The city of Vicksburg was ravaged by the American Civil War, and so were the men who were about to board the steamboat Sultana. Yet few know the story of the Sultana's demise, or the ensuing rescue effort that included Confederate soldiers saving Union soldiers they might have shot just weeks earlier. I think reporting was much more accurate, and less political, than it is today. The rest can be gotten through the internet, which can be a positive thingif done correctly. However, the Judge Advocate General of the United States Army overturned the guilty verdict because Speed had been at the parole camp all day and had not personally placed a single soldier on board Sultana. "The Arabia sank. "He served in the 23rd Arkansas Cavalry, and he was tasked with, among other things, raiding ships going up and down the river," Frank Barton says. The flaming hull drifted onto a shoreline sandbar and grounded. The fires still going against the empty boiler created hot spots. Hunter, Louis C. Steamboats on the Western Rivers: An Economic and Technological History. We turn the clock back to April of 1993 and present excerpts of the original reviews from Joe Pollack. That is a sunken ship almost every 3 miles! The Shipwreck That Led Confederate Veterans To Risk All For Union - NPR The earliest steamboat disaster in Arkansas waters may have been the Car of Commerce, which suffered a boiler explosion north of Osceola (Mississippi County) on the Mississippi River in 1828, killing twenty-one people, while the deadliest was the loss of the Sultana near Marion (Crittenden County) on April 27, 1865, in which as many as 1,800 were [4]:79 First one boiler exploded, followed a split-second later by two more. In the end, no one was ever held accountable for what remains the deadliest maritime disaster in United States history. The areas between the many flues clogged easily, especially since dirty river water carried much sediment, and were difficult to clean. But it was the last trace of St. Louis' own Eagle Packet Co., which Leyhe's father and uncle founded shortly before the Civil War, when the downtown levee was crowded with steamboats. Capt. FS: What was the role played by the last Sultana in the Civil War, and how significant was that role? The Directorypadded out the bloody prose of the disaster descriptions and the repetitive awfulness of the illustrations with current business and travel information about the Mississippi Valley. 2 likes, 0 comments - BHYHA (@bhyhapodcast) on Instagram: "On this day in 1865.The steamboat Sultana explodes on the Mississippi River near Memphis, killi." BHYHA on Instagram: "On this day in 1865.The steamboat Sultana explodes on the Mississippi River near Memphis, killing 1,700 passengers including many discharged Union soldiers. Lawmakers voted 85-12 Monday to approve legislation that would exempt . [22], In 1903, another person reported that Sultana had been sabotaged by a Tennessee farmer who lived along the river and cut wood for passing steamboats. Frank Barton is the descendant of one of those Confederate soldiers, a man named Franklin Hardin Barton. In 2012 and 2015, the river was low sufficient to additionally expose the USS Inaugural. The city of Marion is the closest city to the wreck site and is also the home to a number of descendants of people who aided in the rescue of the Sultana victims. During the Civil War steamboats carried Iowa soldiers, weapons and food supplies to army posts. BHYHA on Instagram: "On this day in 1865The steamboat Sultana The cost for a stateroom fare was marginal when compared to the amount that could be gained by carrying freight and goods. Find out more about what this space is all abouthere. It is also about a rescue effort that brought together people who had been at war just weeks earlier. GES: The Sultana Disaster Museum is located in Marion because that is the closest city to the remains of the vessel. But some of the most poignant stories involve Confederate soldiers rescuing their Union counterparts.
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