steamboat wrecks on the mississippi river steamboat wrecks on the mississippi river

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. On April 27, 1865, the steamboat Sultana exploded and sank while traveling up the Mississippi River, killing an estimated 1,800 people. The Mississippi was not as dangerous. ", Discovery Gives New Ending To A Death At The Civil War's Close. GES: The dirty river water of the lower Mississippi was not really thought of as a problem by the steamboat captains or engineers. 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. 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. Morgan, James Morris. William "Buck" Leyhe, who had sold Eagle Packet Co. the year before, waits for rescue on Grand Tower Island after the Golden Eagle sank. GES: Sultana (No. On May 19, 1947, the Golden Eagle left St. Louis on the Mississippi River and headed for Nashville. . A female fan exclaimed what a lovely shade of Cardinal in reference to the trim on the new uniforms. In the 1820s, steamboats on the Mississippi carried lead from Julien Dubuque's lead mines near Dubuque. As stated in the 1903 newspaper article, the log was mistakenly taken by Sultana. The boat was 260 feet long and had an authorized capacity of 376 passengers and crew. Three civilian victims of the wreck of Sultana are interred at Elmwood Cemetery in Memphis. "It won't move!" Explosion of the Steamboat Constitution, May 4, 1817, Point Coupee, Louisiana. He died in 1871, having escaped justice because of his numerous highly placed patronsincluding two presidents. The Capt. In his book recently published by the Naval Institute Press, Destruction of the Steamboat Sultana: The Worst Maritime Disaster in American History, author Gene Eric Salecker sheds new light on the Sultanas tragic fate. Almost 1,200 people perished. Sometimes these snags stuck out of the water. 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. Then, as time went on, I noticed that the numbers of people supposedly on board the Sultana when she exploded, and the number of people that died on board the Sultana, kept going up and up and up. No one seemed to question the danger of a steamboat race until there was an accident or . I gave only short shrift to the coal-torpedo sabotage theory. The sediment tended to settle on the bottom of the boilers or clog between the flues and leave hotspots. It was reported that the steamer was insured for $8,000. After some time, the weakened twin smokestacks fell; the starboard smokestack fell backward into the blasted hole, and the port smokestack fell forward onto the crowded forward section of the upper deck, hitting the ship's bell as it fell. Last chance! By that standard, the loss of the Golden Eagle was a minor event. This list may not reflect recent changes . [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. [12] In 1880, the War Department placed the number of survivors at 931, but the most recent research places the number at 961. [4]:129 Eventually, the hulk of Sultana drifted about six miles (10km) to the west bank of the river and sank at around 7:00 AM near Mound City and present-day Marion, Arkansas, about five hours after the explosion. The broken wood caught fire and turned the remaining superstructure into a raging inferno. Click on links in the titles below to reach Lloyds descriptions of the accidents pictured. The fires still going against the empty boiler created hot spots. 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. ARCHERAt Galena, from St. Louis, Sept. 8, 1845; sunk by collision with steamer "Di Vernon", in chute between islands 521 and 522, five miles above mouth of Illinois River, Nov. 27, 1851; was cut in two, and sunk in three minutes, with a loss of forty-one lives. What is the connection? Tucson: Fireship Press, 2009. In the early 1900s, the Mississippi River shifted about two miles to the east, leaving the wreck under about 15 feet of Arkansas soil. Poster: Shows location of 31 steamboat sinkings on Mississippi River between Trempealeau, WI and Victory, WI (many boats were recovered and refitted). Persac, Marie Adrien (Artist). It was easier to copy everything and not use some of it than to forget to copy something and need it later on. More and more government documents are coming online every day, so it is now quick and easy to make a search for needed information. Trees along the river bank were almost completely covered until only the very tops of the trees were visible above the swirling, powerful water. Burning of the Orline St. John, near Montgomery, Alabama, March 2, 1850. from 1993-2005. Is it a good thing? "The war had just ended a few weeks before," he says. And the boat was filled with enlisted men primarily men who really hadn't made a mark in history or a mark in life." When steamboats went out to investigate the wreck, they reported on what was found. The Nick Wall was a sternwheel river packet that struck a snag on the Mississippi River near Grand Lake (Chicot County) on December 18, 1870. As the crew made sure the cargo was packed tightly, the captain blew the whistle. FS: Tell us why the Sultana Disaster Museum is located in Marion, Arkansas. St. Louis' biggest party ran for seven months and was such a success it even made money. Publisher James T. Lloyd's 1856 book Lloyd's Steamboat Directory, and Disasters on the Western Waters, is illustrated by 32 woodcuts of explosions, fires, and foundering ships, chronicling a. The story of the Sultana isn't well-known even among people who live along the Mississippi. In 1857, The Nebraska City Advertiser newspaper listed 46 steamboats traveling the Missouri, with 12 more being built. The steamboat business always had been a risky affair. Steamboats ultimately carried more men and freight in the Civil War than the faster and more expensive railroads. He ordered the engines reversed, but the drifting boat smacked into submerged rocks near Grand Tower Island, opening a gash on its port (left) side. Wolf River. After days in flood stage, the Mississippi River appeared to be at crest in Lansing, Iowa Friday evening as the river has spent hours below the max daily crest. Steamboats and flatboats brought thousands of early settlers to the new land of Iowa. 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. As for the Sultana disaster itself, it was clearly a case of putting profit over safety. The sternwheel paddleboat that would later be named the Eclipse was built in 1901 at St. Joseph, Missouri, for Captain A. Stewart for service on the Missouri River, and was christened the City of St. Joseph . Lead was a very important export from the Dubuque area. In writing my first few books I literally had to go to the U.S., state, and military archives to do my research. In the end, no one was ever held accountable for what remains the deadliest maritime disaster in United States history. 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. From 1817 to 1871, about 5,600 people died on Mississippi River wrecks of all sorts, including burst boilers, collisions and fires. As a lawyer, Potter was well-equipped to investigate the mistakes and malfeasance that led to the Sultana disaster. and Mrs. M.V. Then, once some laws were passed, they were generally ignored. Non-subscribers can read five free Naval History articles per month. An aerial view of the striken Golden Eagle at Grand Tower Island in the Mississippi River on May 19, 1947. 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. However, Louden's claim is controversial, and most scholars support the official explanation. Poster 17" x 22". 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. Only six years before, it had foundered in the river near Chester, Ill., with one crew member lost. However, the Upper Rapids and Lower Rapids were serious obstacles to navigate. 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. "The paddle wheel fell off of one side, caused the boat to turn sideways; the other paddle wheel fell off.". 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. Get up-to-the-minute news sent straight to your device. Hunter, Louis C. Steamboats on the Western Rivers: An Economic and Technological History. "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 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. Its dining room was graced with chandeliers and red carpet. [33] The museum is only temporary until enough funds can be raised to build a permanent museum. 2023 And the shrapnel, the steam and the boiling water killed hundreds. 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. No one was ever held accountable for the tragedy. In later years the steamboats pushed huge rafts of logs from the forests of Wisconsin and Minnesota to sawmills farther down the river. 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. Barrels of flour were emptied on the ground, and the terribly burned victims were rolled in it and placed in the shade. 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. On May 6, 1856 a steamboat named Effie Afton crashed into the bridge, destroying the steamboat as well as part of the bridge. He was a passenger aboard the Golden Eagle, the company's last steamboat, when it sank near Tower Island in the Mississippi River on May 18, 1947. By the 1830s steamboats had navigated the Missouri River to the mouth of the Yellowstone River. DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) People living along the Mississippi River watched warily Sunday as water levels rose in southeast Iowa and northwest Illinois, awaiting spring crests as floodwaters began . The Sultana should be remembered because what happened to her need not have happened. The Hero and the Pavillion traveled the Des Moines River to Fort Des Moines in 1837. William "Buck" Lehye, who sold the Golden Eagle one year before, and Mrs. Frank Lind, a lifelong fancier of steamboat travel. Since most steamboats of the time were constructed of wood covered with paint and varnish, fires were a significant concern. (Post-Dispatch), Ruth Ferris, assistant curator at the Missouri Historical Society (now the History Museum), displays the steering wheel in the Golden Eagle pilot house as it went on display in the museum on May 2, 1962. Her two side-mounted paddle wheels were driven by four fire-tube boilers. [11] The official count by the United States Customs Service was 1,547. Library of Congress FS: In the course of your story, you declare that It is now possible to write a work of historical nonfiction without ever leaving home. How do you actually feel about that? Today, Potter describes the scene from a park along the banks of the Mississippi, just north of Memphis. [4]:33,3435,38,4041, While the paroled prisoners, primarily from the states of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia,[4]:226290 were brought from the parole camp to Sultana, a mechanic was brought down to work on the leaky boiler. During the gold rush to Montana in the 1860s, steamboats traveled far up the Missouri to early mining towns. Using steam power, riverboats were developed during that time which could navigate in shallow waters as well as upriver against strong currents. Terrific Explosion of the Steamboat Ben Franklin, at Mobile, Alabama, March 13, 1836. 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.. Hersey and many others died instantly in a blast of scalding steam. 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. In the early hours of April 27th, 1865, mere days after the end of the Civil War, the Sultana burst into flames along the Mississippi River. by Kelby Ouchley Courtesy of The Historic New Orleans Collection Steamboat Princess. But the story of the Sultana is about more than lost lives. 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. Sometimes captains accidentally ran their boats up onto the sandbars. "All them boys . Marion, across the river from Memphis, Tenn., is near the spot where the 260-foot side-wheeler came to rest. [5] About ten hours south of Vicksburg, one of Sultana's four boilers sprang a leak. Among other St. Louisans along for the ride was Capt. Miller, of Vicksburg, who changed the name to Alice Miller and ran the boat on the Yazoo and Sunflower rivers. Aurora (1902) steam screw. The lure of huge profits led steamboats to travel in unsafe river conditions and at unsafe speeds. 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. "And the entire center of the boat erupted like a volcano.". Capt. [4]:2931, Leaving Vicksburg, Sultana traveled downriver to New Orleans, continuing to spread the news of Lincoln's assassination. (Post-Dispatch), U.S. Army Corps of Engineers crews dismantle the wreck of the Golden Eagle on May 28, 1947, to eliminate its hazard to river navigation. The Golden Eagle's new St. Louis-based owners left it to the river's mercy. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. The Missouri was a dangerous river. A Look Back The day the Golden Eagle steamboat sank in 1947. 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. A series of maritime disasters, occurred over the next 120 years before the Coast Guard assumed enforcement responsibility. ", 15th Michigan Volunteer Infantry Regiment, Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company, Judge Advocate General of the United States Army, "Sultana: A Tragic Postscript to the Civil War", https://www.nationalboard.org/SiteDocuments/General%20Meeting/Jennings.pdf, "The Sultana Disaster (Coal Torpedo theory)", http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/investigation/civil-war-sabotage/, Sultana museum in Arkansas memorializes 1,169 people who died in river, "Surviving the Worst: The Wreck of the Sultana at the End of the American Civil War", "Blues in the Water, by King's German Legion", "Ardent Presents: Cory Branan "The Wreck of the Sultana", "Remember the Sultana | Film Threat - Part 2", Shipwrecks and maritime incidents in 1865, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sultana_(steamboat)&oldid=1152358259, Articles with incomplete citations from April 2022, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles with unsourced statements from April 2022, Articles with unsourced statements from July 2018, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Initially Capt. She also carried a crew of 85. They can search material held in small, local historical societies. But perhaps the best explanation is that after years of bloody conflict, the nation was simply tired of hearing about war and death. Leyhe died in 1956 in St. Louis at 83. On a landscape lacking roads but braided with bayous and rivers, travel via water was the only efficient means of transportation. Paskoff, Paul F. Troubled Waters: Steamboat Disasters, River Improvements, and American Public Policy, 18211860. 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. The few steamboats still gliding along the rivers today are usually carrying tourists on short trips. Its sister craft included the Spread Eagle and the Bald Eagle. Considered one of them was the biggest vessel ever to sail via the world. On November 19, 1840, The Burlington Hawkeye newspaper reported upwards of 100 flatboats had passed Burlington going downstream loaded with produce. 2012 was additionally when the river was low sufficient to expose five steamboat wrecks along the Missouri River between St. Charles and Bridgeton. [4]:24 On April 26, Sultana stopped at Helena, Arkansas, where photographer Thomas W. Bankes took a picture of the grossly overcrowded vessel. Daniel Jackson / May 29, 2021 The boat was loaded with passengers, mostly from Mississippi and Louisiana, headed to New Orleans to celebrate Mardi Gras. Golden Eagle's pilot house was salvaged. Cost $8 for poster plus $3.50 postage (U.S.). The Sultana story is one of greed and corruption, as well as pathos and sadness. 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. Crew members roused passengers and swung a gangplank onto land. 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. One wall is decorated with the names of every soldier, crewmember, and passenger on the boat on April 27, 1865. Eventually, the group settled on meeting in the Toledo, Ohio area. "They had survived prison in one of the most hideous places the South had. [7] Many died of drowning or hypothermia. Cardinals latest, deflating loss compounds concerns, Man shot, killed near Kiener Plaza in downtown St. Louis, What was Andrew Knizner thinking? WASHINGTON -- If the U.S. Senate has its way, a 90-year-old steamboat will soon be able to return to the Mississippi River. The Worst Marine Disaster in U. S. History. Steamboat companies often made huge profits by carrying tons of cargo to rapidly growing communities. Fogelman's ancestors didn't have any boats to reach the trapped soldiers, so they improvised. At 0200 on 27 April 1865, when the boat was seven miles above Memphis, her boilers exploded. An estimated 1,800 people died in the explosion and ensuing fire more than died in the sinking of the Titanic. Lawmakers voted 85-12 Monday to approve legislation that would exempt . (Lloyd Spainhower/Post-Dispatch), Capt. Freight and cargo were much more profitablealthough the movement of animals could be a backbreaking, smelly proposition! Although the patched boiler was not the cause of the disaster, it was certainly indicative that the Sultana had faulty boilers. And, in fact, when the boats used the regular flue boilers, the sediment in the water was not too much of a problem. There were 10 passengers on board. [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. April 27, 2023. Send to: Patrick Rash. 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. Many of the stories that the newspapers got from survivors were not always correct (one man said that there were people from every state in the Union on boardnot so), but they were reporting what they were told. 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. Steamboat explosions were dramatic, deadly, and common. Flatboats and keelboats carried cargo down the river. The steamboat has been submerged in the water of the Missouri river ever since. GES: Goods and materials were by far the most important and more profitable cargo to carry. "It was like a tremendous bomb going off in the middle of where these men were," Potter says. In his book River of Dark Dreams, historian Walter Johnson writes that the table of contents of Lloyds bestseller was sort of a nightmare poem of alphabetized Americana: a catalog of 97 major and hundreds of minor boat disasters. GES: I agree wholeheartedly. 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. In 2012 and 2015, the river was low sufficient to additionally expose the USS Inaugural. Nathan Smith eased the coal-burning steamer downstream through a narrow bend 80 miles below St. Louis. Featured in the museum are a few relics from Sultana such as shaker plates from the boat's furnace, furnace bricks, a few pieces of wood, and some small metal pieces. Subscribe now and never hit a limit. The report blamed quartermaster Capt. A BNSF Railway freight train traveling along the banks of the Mississippi River derailed near Ferryville, Wis., shortly after noon Thursday, the company said. The Mississippi River has changed course several times since the disaster, leaving the wreck under dry land and far from today's river. It went upward at a 45-degree angle, tearing through the crowded decks above and completely destroying the pilothouse, instantly killing Captain Mason. "The Arabia sank. At some places, the river overflowed the banks and spread out three miles wide. It was a standard fare, no matter who you were. By that standard, the loss of the Golden Eagle was a minor event. In the early 1900s, the Mississippi River shifted about two miles to the east, leaving the wreck under about 15 feet of Arkansas soil. 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. Get up-close and in-depth when examining artifacts such as photographs. (You can unsubscribe anytime), Courtesy of The Historic New Orleans Collection, Steamboat Princess. 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. Human errorfailure to maintain safe boiler pressurewas determined to be the cause of the tragedy, and a pall was cast over the 1859 Mardi Gras celebrations. But what the museum really has to offer is a powerful story of soldiers who died just days away from seeing their families and loved ones. Many Sultana survivors ended up on the Arkansas side of the river, which was under Confederate control during the war. (Post-Dispatch). Her four boilers were interconnected and mounted side-by-side so that if the boat tipped sideways, water would tend to run out of the highest boiler. Subscribe with this special offer to keep reading, (renews at {{format_dollars}}{{start_price}}{{format_cents}}/month + tax). 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. Steamboat Princess Disaster On February 27, 1859, the Steamboat Princess exploded on the Mississippi River killing between 70 and 200 passengers and crew. Instead of taking two or three days, the temporary repair took only one. By the time the repairs would have been completed, the prisoners would have been sent home on other boats. Most of its 91 passengers and crew were asleep. It has been going on for centuries. 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. As the steamboat made her way north following the twists and turns of the river, she listed severely from side to side. On the Mississippi river, it was four to five years." "There were about 289 steamboats that sank or possibly more on the Missouri River in the mid-19th century," Rose said. However, they were not without hazards, as high-pressure steam boilers manufactured according to the science of the day were analogous to kegs of dynamite. 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.