The Largest Shipwreck in U.S. History
By Jerry Stewart
When you think of shipwrecks in our American history, what comes to your mind? Did you know that there was an American shipwreck, not on the ocean, but right here in the United States, which may have cost more lives than any shipwreck ever, and it happened on the Mississippi River.
What’s the story?
The year was 1865 – it was April and our terrible Civil War was finally over. Now that the War was over, 10s of 1000s of prisoners of war from both sides were being released to go back to their homes. But how could all the soldiers get back home? They had no money or transportation of their own. Most had nothing more than the clothes on their back. How would they get home? One such way was by steamboat.
There was a prison camp in Vicksburg, Mississippi, and a General there had ordered that those prisoners being released from that camp be sent northward from Vicksburg on privately owned steamboats, with the vessels owners receiving $5 for each enlisted man they carried and $10 for each officer. So, the steamboat captains all rushed to points where these soldiers were, and one such ship was the USS Sultana. Now the Sultana had a legal carrying capacity of 376, so with a crew of 80 to 85, the maximum passenger load was 290 passengers.
Now remember that number – 290
Well, the owner of the steamboat, Sultana, negotiated with military officials and was assured that if his steam boat would come to Vicksburg, he was assured a full passenger load at the prescribed fee.
So, the Sultana made its way up the river from New Orleans – but the Sultana carried with it a big problem. A crack had been discovered in one of the ship’s huge boilers and the ship needed to be docked for a major repair. But, if the ship was forced to go to dry dock for repair, it would lose the big money contract to carry the released prisoners. So instead of stopping for a major repair, the crack in the huge boiler was only patched up on April 23, and the Sultana arrived in Vicksburg and was informed that the total number of prisoners to be shipped would be as many as 1400. But when the day came for the soldiers to be loaded up, as the Sultana pulled away from the dock, it was carrying 1996 passengers for three full days and nights.
The USS Sultana traveled northward, up the Mississippi with no incident, and then at 2:00 AM on April the 27th, as most of the war-torn prisoners slept on the deck, three of the boilers blew with such a fury, witnesses on shore said it sounded like the thundering noise of 100 earthquakes. The blast tore through the decks above the boilers, spewing red hot coals and timbers and debris onto the sleeping soldiers. Hundreds were killed instantly. Others were trapped in the wreckage, unable to get free as the steamers slowly listed and sank. Others were so weak that even in the water, free from the explosion, they had no strength to swim. The final official death count was 1653 – the worst shipwreck in U.S. history. Now you might just be saying, “What a terrible tragedy. Why have I never heard of it?” One big reason was because it was only less than two weeks before, on April the 15th, 1865, that President Abraham Lincoln had been assassinated. What a sad and tragic time in our history.
The History Guy uploaded a very informative video discussing the USS Sultana, including the deathbed confession of a confederate soldier who claimed to have planted a ‘coal torpedo’ that destroyed the steamship. Here is the video:
