A steamboat is a boat that is propelled primarily by steam power, typically driving propellers or paddlewheels.Steamboats sometimes use the prefix designation SS, S.S. or S/S (for 'Screw Steamer') or PS (for 'Paddle Steamer'); however, these designations are most often used for steamships.. Since the US government was paying steamboat captains a dividend to carry the prisoners back north, Captain Hatch and the captain of the Sultana worked out a deal whereby Hatch would guarantee a large load of ex-prisoners for the Sultana in exchange for a kickback of the government funds from Captain Mason. 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. But, no, the ice cream cone wasn't invented there. GES: I think the reporting of the Sultana disaster in April and May 1865 was pretty accurate. Hundreds of steamboats were wrecked on the Missouri. 2. William "Buck" Lehye, who sold the Golden Eagle one year before, and Mrs. Frank Lind, a lifelong fancier of steamboat travel. "All the boilers, four in number, burst simultaneously . The broken wood caught fire and turned the remaining superstructure into a raging inferno. Sign up for our newsletter to keep reading. [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. Fire broke out and began to consume the remains. FS: In writing this book and having devoted much of your lifetime to telling the true stories of the vessels named Sultana, when did your aim to dispel myths and legends take over your outlook? 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. 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. Jan. 3, 1844 Steamboat wreck kills as many as 70 on the Mississippi at St. Louis By Tim O'Neil St. Louis Post-Dispatch Jan 3, 2023 0 1 of 2 Steamboats and freight wagons crowd the St. Louis. Its dining room was graced with chandeliers and red carpet. [4]:12 On the morning of April 15, she was tied up at Cairo, Illinois, when word reached the city that U.S. President Abraham Lincoln had been shot in Washington, D.C. St. Louis' biggest party ran for seven months and was such a success it even made money. Because of a trick of fate, the story of the Sultana is virtually unknown. Lena Kent, a . That meant another expensive trip and more time. The Sultana tragedies seem to be classic examples of putting profit over safety. Preston Lodwick, then a consortium including Capt. An outfield in flux. In the end, no one was ever held accountable for what remains the deadliest maritime disaster in United States history. [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. [17], In 1888, a St. Louis resident named William Streetor claimed that his former business partner, Robert Louden, made a confession of having sabotaged Sultana by the use of a coal torpedo while they were drinking in a saloon. GES: Readers should care about the Sultana since it was the greatest maritime disaster in American history. No one was ever held accountable for the tragedy. Most of its 91 passengers and crew were asleep. The number of people killed instantly or who drowned or died as a result of their injuries was variously estimated from seventy to two hundred; the actual number was likely closer to the smaller figure. 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. Passengers were blown apart or scalded by the hot water. [15][full citation needed], The official cause of the Sultana disaster was determined to be the mismanagement of water levels in the boilers, exacerbated by the fact that the vessel was severely overloaded and top-heavy. [9] In February 1867, the Bureau of Military Justice placed the death toll at 1,100. [4]:2728, Upon reaching Vicksburg, Mississippi, Mason was approached by Captain Reuben Hatch, the chief quartermaster at Vicksburg, with a proposal. All 25 soldiers were rescued, historians say, and the Fogelman home became a refuge for Sultana survivors. The few steamboats still gliding along the rivers today are usually carrying tourists on short trips. Badger State (1844) steam paddle. As a lawyer, Potter was well-equipped to investigate the mistakes and malfeasance that led to the Sultana disaster. However, the Upper Rapids and Lower Rapids were serious obstacles to navigate. The city has created a museum and is hosting events intended to bring attention to the tragedy. Hersey and many others died instantly in a blast of scalding steam. "A few weeks earlier, he might have been attacking the Sultana if it had come in.". Pages in category "Shipwrecks of the Mississippi River" The following 50 pages are in this category, out of 50 total. Her two side-mounted paddle wheels were driven by four fire-tube boilers. At some places, the river overflowed the banks and spread out three miles wide. The exact number of steamboat accidents in Iowa Rivers is not known. When the boat tipped the other way, water rushing back into the empty boiler would hit the hot spots and flash instantly to steam, creating a sudden surge in pressure. Salecker, historical consultant for the Sultana Disaster Museum in Marion, Arkansas, recently participated in an author q&a with former Naval History editor-in-chief Fred Schultz to discuss the book: FS: After having read your exhaustive story of the various iterations of the steamboat Sultana, I couldnt help but compare her fate to the loss of the Titanic, which, as Im sure you know, has received much more attention from historians. Cost $8 for poster plus $3.50 postage (U.S.). Concussion swept away the infrastructure, and the upper cabins, state rooms, and hurricane deck collapsed inward. It was her 82nd birthday. And the boat was filled with enlisted men primarily men who really hadn't made a mark in history or a mark in life." The U.S. government would pay US$2.75 per enlisted man and US$8 per officer to any steamboat captain who would take a group north. 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. There was no manifest to record the names of passengers aboard the Princess at the time of the disaster. The Missouri History Museum displayed it from 1962 to 1996 and preserves it in storage. The steamboat business always had been a risky affair. Why should potential readers care? The Golden Eagle's new St. Louis-based owners left it to the river's mercy. I gave only short shrift to the coal-torpedo sabotage theory. A year later, when the U.S. government established the Memphis National Cemetery[4]:206 on the northeast side of the city, the bodies were moved there. 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. Since most steamboats of the time were constructed of wood covered with paint and varnish, fires were a significant concern. Smith shouted at 2:20 a.m., suddenly unable to turn the steering wheel. Everyone escaped to the muddy, isolated safety of Grand Tower Island. James Cass Mason, King's German Legion "Blues in the Water" tells a stylized version of the, This page was last edited on 29 April 2023, at 19:15. They'd stay in a motel at night, but she loved to cook for the crew and the men from the Coast Guard. Introduced in 1848, they could generate twice as much steam per fuel load as conventional boilers. Its clientele were among societys elite in the Lower Mississippi Valley. web oct 10 2017 it was the steamboat sultana on the mississippi river and it could have been prevented in 1865 the civil war was winding down and the . Probably the most interesting of the wrecks are Vessel No. It was just weeks after the Civil War ended, Potter explains, and the vessel was packed with Union soldiers who'd been released from Confederate prison camps. Click on links in the titles below to reach Lloyds descriptions of the accidents pictured. But there were many other reasons the event didn't get much attention at the time. Sometimes captains accidentally ran their boats up onto the sandbars. It was a standard fare, no matter who you were. Author Q&ADestruction of the Steamboat Sultana, Fred Schultz has been in the publishing business since 1980 and was editor-in-chief of. During her time in port, and while the repairs were being made, Sultana took on the paroled prisoners. Louis.". yet the tragedy got very few headlines. Lead was a very important export from the Dubuque area. On May 6, 1856 a steamboat named Effie Afton crashed into the bridge, destroying the steamboat as well as part of the bridge. On the decks the passengers cheered as the boat headed up the river. The steamboat has been submerged in the water of the Missouri river ever since. He was a passenger on its trip to Nashville, Tenn. (Post-Dispatch), Passengers pass time on Grand Tower Island until they were picked up by a passing towboat. 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. The temporary museum it has created near City Hall includes pictures, personal items from soldiers, pieces of the Sultana, and a 14-foot replica of the boat. It happened near Memphis, Tennessee, almost in the very heart of the United States, and yet very few people have ever heard about it. The jagged limbs could rip open the bottom of a steamboat. Yet, shortly after my 1996 book came out, a cabal of people sprang up touting the sabotage theory once again. The boat and its entire cargo was a total loss. New York: Dover Maritime, 1994. 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]. Explosion of the Moselle, Near Cincinnati, Ohio, April 25, 1838. You have permission to edit this article. Savannah Davis, 23, died from blunt . "And the entire center of the boat erupted like a volcano.". The Sultana was on its way from Vicksburg, Miss., to St. Louis when the explosion occurred, says Jerry Potter, a Memphis lawyer and author of The Sultana Tragedy. FS: Given the mistrust of any reporting from the press in some parts of our society today, how reliable would you say the reporting on these disasters was back in its day? [4]:7479. FS: It seems to this reader that one of the main reasons for such a series of disasters for vessels named Sultana is that the owners of the steamers and the people entrusted with actually navigating the ships [boats] were ignoring the fact that overcrowding may have been the principal reason for the long list of tragedies. It is also about a rescue effort that brought together people who had been at war just weeks earlier. Instead, Mason and his chief engineer, Nathan Wintringer, convinced the mechanic to make temporary repairs, hammering back the bulged boiler plate and riveting a patch of lesser thickness over the seam. Survivors panicked and raced for the safety of the water, but in their weakened condition, they soon ran out of strength and began to cling to each other. An aerial view of the striken Golden Eagle at Grand Tower Island in the Mississippi River on May 19, 1947. Explosion of the Oronoko, April 21, 1838, near Princeton, Mississippi. It was part of the museum's River Room. As for the Sultana disaster itself, it was clearly a case of putting profit over safety. Steamboats carried plows and seed to new farmers settling in Nebraska in the 1850s and 1860s. Writing about the scene after the explosion of the Louisiana (which blew up in the docks at New Orleans on Nov. 15, 1849), Lloyd wrote: The woodcut illustrations below, which ran small in the book, reveal a repetitive motif when looked at in a larger format: bodies thrown in the air, depicted in flight at the moment of explosion. An estimated 1,800 people died in the explosion and ensuing fire more than died in the sinking of the Titanic. 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. Look for details such as clothing, technologies or buildings in old photographs to learn more about the past. The report blamed quartermaster Capt. 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. Poster: Shows location of 31 steamboat sinkings on Mississippi River between Trempealeau, WI and Victory, WI (many boats were recovered and refitted). 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. 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]:72 Sultana subsequently arrived at Memphis, Tennessee, around 7:00 PM, and the crew began unloading 120 tons (109 tonnes) of sugar from the hold. Group, a Graham Holdings Company. The Missouri was a dangerous river. 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. A couple billed as "a genuine giant and giantess" arrive in St. Louis for a visit. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. by Kelby Ouchley Courtesy of The Historic New Orleans Collection Steamboat Princess. Subscribe now and never hit a limit. Sultana was a commercial side-wheel steamboat which exploded and sank on the Mississippi River on April 27, 1865, killing 1,169 people in what remains the worst maritime disaster in United States history. What is the connection? Freight and cargo were much more profitablealthough the movement of animals could be a backbreaking, smelly proposition! A passing towboat gave them a lift back to Grand Island, Ill., where they boarded buses for the trip home. Aurora (1902) steam screw. Irregular river depth, sandbars and snags made steamboat travel on the Missouri slow and dangerous. The boilers exploded off Cairo, killing at least 1443 men, a loss of life never exceeded on the rivers, and rarely at sea. Sultana launched on January 3, 1863, the fifth steamboat to bear the name. Persac, Marie Adrien (Artist). The Sultana Tragedy: Americas Greatest Maritime Disaster. However, as I said, a person still needs to go to a resource location such as a museum archive to get the basic facts. A Hancock County native died Sunday evening from injuries she sustained in a boat crash on the Jourdan River, Coroner Jeff Hair confirmed to the Sun Herald. [citation needed], By the mid-1920s, only a handful of survivors could attend the reunions. Considered one of them was the biggest vessel ever to sail via the world. Most were Union soldiers, newly released from Confederate prison camps. [4]:40, Although Hatch had suggested that Mason might get as many as 1,400 released Union prisoners, a mix-up with the parole camp books and suspicion of bribery from other steamboat captains caused the Union officer in charge of the loading, Captain George Augustus Williams, to place every man at the parole camp on board Sultana, believing the number to be less than 1,500. Dropping water levels could cause hot spots leading to metal fatigue, significantly increasing the risk of an explosion. 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. The steamboat needed a lot of steam power to pull away from the shore. At the same time, dozens of people began to float past the Memphis waterfront, calling for help until they were noticed by the crews of docked steamboats and U.S. warships, who immediately set about rescuing the survivors. Perhaps inspired by their northern comrades, a southern group of survivors, men from Tennessee and Kentucky, began meeting in 1889 around Knoxville, Tennessee. Also, many people chose to pay for only deck passage, which restricted the traveler to the lowest (main) deck. "And the shrapnel, the steam and the boiling water killed hundreds.". 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. Library of Congress For several hours its crew and passengers provided aid before heading upriver, its decks covered with bodies of the dead and injured. Steamboat companies often made huge profits by carrying tons of cargo to rapidly growing communities. On a landscape lacking roads but braided with bayous and rivers, travel via water was the only efficient means of transportation. Knowing that Mason needed money, Hatch suggested that he could guarantee Mason a full load of about 1,400 prisoners if Mason would agree to give him a kickback. From 1817 to 1871, about 5,600 people died on Mississippi River wrecks of all sorts, including burst boilers, collisions and fires. And finally, at the end of the war, the Sultana would have played a significant role in transporting former Union prisoners-of-war back to the North. Privacy Policy. The Mississippi was not as dangerous. By 1857, St. Paul had become a bustling port, with over 1,000 steamboat arrivals each year by some 62 to 99 boats. And it was very cold. Among its owners on that day was Herman Pott, St. Louis boatbuilder. By the post-World War II era, screw-propellered, diesel-powered, flat-nosed towboats dotted the Tennessee, Cumberland, and Mississippi River Systems that once had hosted the Steamboat Age. Then the captain did his best to steer around the dead trees, but sometimes they were hidden underwater. Lawmakers voted 85-12 Monday to approve legislation that would exempt . The lure of huge profits led steamboats to travel in unsafe river conditions and at unsafe speeds. Explosion of the Steamboat Constitution, May 4, 1817, Point Coupee, Louisiana. The cost for a stateroom fare was marginal when compared to the amount that could be gained by carrying freight and goods. [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. (The whole book is digitally available via the Library of Congress, on the Internet Archive.). In the thirty years prior to the Civil War, several thousand lives were lost in steamboat calamities. Persac, Marie Adrien (Artist) Explosion of the Moselle, Near Cincinnati, Ohio, April 25, 1838.. An estimated four hundred people were on board the Princess when it pulled out into the current of the river after 9 a.m. Because the boat was late, high boiler pressure had been maintained during the stop, and second engineer Peter Hersey was reported to have declared that he would make it to New Orleans on time if he had to blow her up. As a portent of the looming catastrophe, the Mississippi River was veiled in a dense fog. In the 1820s, steamboats on the Mississippi carried lead from Julien Dubuque's lead mines near Dubuque. Constructed of wood in 1863 by the John Litherbury Boatyard [1] in Cincinnati, Ohio, Sultana was intended for the lower Mississippi cotton trade. What is the allure to your treatment of the Sultana stories? Is it a good thing? Using steam power, riverboats were developed during that time which could navigate in shallow waters as well as upriver against strong currents. The letters reside in the National Archives in Washington, D.C. After the disaster, Reuben Benton Hatch refused three separate subpoenas to appear before Captain Speed's trial and give testimony. However, Sultana was a coal-burning boat and not a wood-burner. Paskoff, Paul F. Troubled Waters: Steamboat Disasters, River Improvements, and American Public Policy, 18211860. I copied everything I could find, even though I may never use the material. Catchers once in a lifetime lunge saves Cardinals, The world watches (and makes donations) as St. Louis bald eagle raises eaglet from a rock, Governor threatens to keep Missouri lawmakers in session over transgender rules, Barat Academy in Chesterfield to close after years of financial troubles, Four young people die in Old Monroe head-on crash, Court records online include private information for thousands of Missouri residents, Archdiocese releases third draft of proposed changes to St. Louis parishes. A series of maritime disasters, occurred over the next 120 years before the Coast Guard assumed enforcement responsibility. Maintaining a posted schedule was important in the competitive business of steamboat commerce. At least a hundred people survived their injuries. 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 [10] In 1880, the United States Congress, in conjunction with the War Department, reported the loss of life as 1,259. hide caption. "The Arabia sank. Instead of taking two or three days, the temporary repair took only one. 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. 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. Barrels of flour were emptied on the ground, and the terribly burned victims were rolled in it and placed in the shade. 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. 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. Send to: Patrick Rash. Given as the "John Lithoberry Shipyard" on Ohio Historical Marker 1831 (1999) on the Ohio River at Sawyer Point. He is currently a freelance writer living in Annapolis. Fred Schultz has been in the publishing business since 1980 and was editor-in-chief ofNaval History from 1993-2005. Among those killed were Louisiana state representatives H. J. Huard and Charles Bannister. Fortunately, the sturdy railings around the twin openings of the main stairway prevented the upper deck from crushing down completely onto the middle deck. Further back, the collapsing decks formed a slope that led down into the exposed furnace boxes.
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steamboat wrecks on the mississippi river