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Terror on the Mississippi: The Sultana Disaster, Part I

© Curtis Payne

[Editor's Note - It gives me great pleasure to welcome as our first guest-author long-time Civil War student and regular discussion board contributor Curtis Payne. Curtis became interested in the story of the Sultana upon learning that his great-great-grandfather had actually been one of a handful of people to survive the disaster. Curtis has spent a great deal of time looking into the cause of the explosion, and in the following three-part series he addresses the issue of whether it was the result of sabotage or simply a tragic accident.]

Recently I had the opportunity to take a group from Tulsa to Oklahoma City and visit the Titanic exhibit. Afterwards at lunch the conversation naturally turned to discussing the exhibit.

When I was asked what I thought about it, I gave a short answer with a question of my own attached for any to answer - Can anyone tell me what the greatest U.S. maritime disaster, in terms of lives lost was? Of 25 people in our group, plenty of guesses were made, but none correctly guessed the answer. I followed up giving a series of clues...

It was a name that referred to a sultan's wife, sister, or mother...

It was a steamboat that had been built in Cincinnati in 1863 at the height of the steam-boating era...

It was a typical side-wheeler - it had a dead water speed of 12 m.p.h., had cost $60,000 dollars to build, was one of 700 steamboats traveling the rivers, and had a life expectancy of 4 to 6 years...

It was the 4th boat to carry the name, the prior three all suffering calamities, with the second and third boats by that name burning...

Looking at their expressions I knew it was time to tell them the answer - it was the Sultana I said, and considering the history associated with the previous three boats by that name, the new owner certainly wasn't superstitious.

Some of the respondents, curious about specifics, asked questions about the steamboat - Where and when did it happen? How many people died? Was it an accident, or perhaps sabotage? Was it sunk by Confederate ships or shore batteries? Was it terrorists? What was a boat less then a third the size of the Titanic doing with an equal number of passengers on board?

Genealogical Near Miss

I first came across an article about the Sultana when my Aug. 1995 subscription of the Blue & Gray magazine arrived via the postman.

The steamship Sultana

The copyright of the article Terror on the Mississippi: The Sultana Disaster, Part I in U.S. Civil War is owned by Curtis Payne. Permission to republish Terror on the Mississippi: The Sultana Disaster, Part I in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.