steamboat wrecks on the mississippi river

Hersey and many others died instantly in a blast of scalding steam. Among other St. Louisans along for the ride was Capt. No one was ever held accountable for the tragedy. 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. Paul recorded 41 steamboat arrivals in 1844, and 95 in 1849. On the other hand, the Sultana was an American steamboat carrying almost 100 percent American passengers, including almost 2,000 recently released Union prisoners-of-war returning home to their families. Steamboats and flatboats brought thousands of early settlers to the new land of Iowa. But perhaps the best explanation is that after years of bloody conflict, the nation was simply tired of hearing about war and death. Although the mechanic wanted to cut out and replace a ruptured seam, Mason knew such a job would take a few days and cost him his precious load of prisoners. Look for details such as clothing, technologies or buildings in old photographs to learn more about the past. There is no apparent motive for him to have blown up the boat, especially while on board. Steamboats played a major role in the 19th-century development of the Mississippi River and its tributaries, allowing practical large-scale transport of passengers and freight both up- and down-river. Some 1,700 returning Union Veterans died. 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. Her two side-mounted paddle wheels were driven by four fire-tube boilers. "The river is at flood stage," he says as we watch a barge struggle to move up river, "very similar to what it was on April 27, 1865." He has conducted interviews with some 75 high-profile people, including historians, government officials, combat veterans, journalists, explorers, and Hollywood stars. 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. Send to: Patrick Rash. Dead trees fell into the river and got stuck on the bottom. 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. As shown in my book, when steam navigation of American waterways first began, there were very little, if any, laws for safety. Reuben Benton Hatch, an individual with a long history of corruption and incompetence, who kept his job through political connections: he was the younger brother of Illinois politician Ozias M. Hatch, an advisor and close friend of President Lincoln. After a few Union gunboats filled up their bunkers but refused to pay, the farmer supposedly hollowed out a log, filled it with gunpowder, and then left the lethal log on his woodpile. 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? [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. The ill-fated Sultana in Helena, Ark., just before it exploded on April 27, 1865, with about 2,500 people aboard. Last chance! Constructed of wood in 1863 by the John Litherbury Boatyard[1] in Cincinnati, Ohio, Sultana was intended for the lower Mississippi cotton trade. There were 10 passengers on board. Investigation Tip: [32], In 1982, a local archaeological expedition, led by Memphis attorney Jerry O. Potter, uncovered what was believed to be the wreckage of Sultana. A female fan exclaimed what a lovely shade of Cardinal in reference to the trim on the new uniforms. Aurora (1902) steam screw. Explosion of the Oronoko, April 21, 1838, near Princeton, Mississippi. 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 0200 on 27 April 1865, when the boat was seven miles above Memphis, her boilers exploded. FS: What was the role played by the last Sultana in the Civil War, and how significant was that role? Instead, newspaper accounts say Franklin Barton saved several Union soldiers. GES: Goods and materials were by far the most important and more profitable cargo to carry. [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. At least a hundred people survived their injuries. What effect did steamboats and travel on the river have on the development of Iowa? [9] In February 1867, the Bureau of Military Justice placed the death toll at 1,100. As the steamboat made her way north following the twists and turns of the river, she listed severely from side to side. Whole groups went down together. In support of Louden's claim, what appeared to be a piece of an artillery shell was said to be recovered from the sunken wreck. 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. The Sultanas tubular boilers, however, were harder to clean and could form pockets of sediment that could insulate a section of the tubes from the surrounding water and lead to overheating of the tubes. 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. In the early 1900s, the Mississippi River shifted about two miles to the east, leaving the wreck under about 15 feet of Arkansas soil. Trees along the river bank were almost completely covered until only the very tops of the trees were visible above the swirling, powerful water. One of the most horrific accidents occurred in 1838, when the Moselle, a fast and nearly new Ohio River steamboat, exploded off Cincinnati. The Capt. It was her 82nd birthday. Lavish meals were served four times a day in a great central hall, and surviving menus list such gourmet delicacies as broiled pompano and stuffed crabs. When the Princess pulled up to the wharf in Baton Rouge early on the morning of February 27, 1859, it was already late. "They had survived war," O'Neal says. Pages in category "Shipwrecks of the Mississippi River" The following 50 pages are in this category, out of 50 total. [24]:193197, Despite the magnitude of the disaster, no one was ever formally held accountable. Of this group, there were only 31 deaths between April 28 and June 28. By that standard, the loss of the Golden Eagle was a minor event. Steamboats on the Mississippi River The first steamboat on the Mississippi River along Iowa's border was the 109-ton Virginia, on its way to Fort Snelling (now Saint Paul, Minnesota) in May 1823. 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. William H. "Buck" Leyhe of St. Louis at the wheel of the Golden Eagle steamboat in April 1939. He/she ate the same fare as the roustabouts and hands unless he/she bought a dinner ticket. From 1817 to 1871, about 5,600 people died on Mississippi River wrecks of all sorts, including burst boilers, collisions and fires. hide caption. As stated in the 1903 newspaper article, the log was mistakenly taken by Sultana. Barrels of flour were emptied on the ground, and the terribly burned victims were rolled in it and placed in the shade. In the thirty years prior to the Civil War, several thousand lives were lost in steamboat calamities. ", Discovery Gives New Ending To A Death At The Civil War's Close. By Lieutenant Commander Ralph P. Dillon, U. S. Naval Reserve. Men in skiffs from both riverbanks rescued people clinging to debris. Golden Eagle's pilot house was salvaged. 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? In the early 1900s, the Mississippi River shifted about two miles to the east, leaving the wreck under about 15 feet of Arkansas soil. The Golden Eagle's new St. Louis-based owners left it to the river's mercy. On his trips up and down the river, Odis often took his wife, Rosa, along. A potential reader should care about this story because it shows that greed and corruption in the government is not a new thing. Leyhe died in St. Louis in 1956 at age 83. The St. Louis Daily Missouri Democrat, April 29, 1865, states that the "steamer Sultana left New Orleans on Friday evening the 21st, with about seventy cabin passengers, and about eighty five employees on the boat. However, the explosion of her boilers just above Memphis on 27 April 1865 put a terrible end to that endeavor. It was reported that the steamer was insured for $8,000. We turn the clock back to April of 1993 and present excerpts of the original reviews from Joe Pollack. The Sultana sank in the Mississippi River near Marion, and over the years, the wreck was eventually covered with silt. On a landscape lacking roads but braided with bayous and rivers, travel via water was the only efficient means of transportation. In 1929, only two men attended the southern reunion. Crew members roused passengers and swung a gangplank onto land. Many bodies were never recovered. It was a standard fare, no matter who you were. hide caption. On May 19, 1947, the Golden Eagle left St. Louis on the Mississippi River and headed for Nashville. BNSF Railway says two of three locomotives and "an unknown number of cars carrying freights of all kinds" derailed onto the banks of the Mississippi River around 12:15 p.m. Crews are now working . 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. Soldiers from Kentucky and Tennessee were among the first to die, he says, "because they'd been packed in next to the boilers. 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.. Lloyd, James T. Lloyds Steamboat Directory and Disasters on the Western Waters. 0:12. [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. 2), built in 1860 but coming downriver on her maiden voyage after being refurbished,[6] arrived at about 2:30 AM, a half hour after the explosion, and rescued scores of survivors. 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. [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. 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. Marion, across the river from Memphis, Tenn., is near the spot where the 260-foot side-wheeler came to rest. 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. MALTA BEND, Mo. Explosion of the Moselle, Near Cincinnati, Ohio, April 25, 1838. Sometimes the boilers exploded. (Post-Dispatch), Capt. 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. The preliminary crest of 19.61 . He died in 1871, having escaped justice because of his numerous highly placed patronsincluding two presidents. [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. Unlike many of the nautical discoveries in. You have permission to edit this article. 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. 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? [5] About ten hours south of Vicksburg, one of Sultana's four boilers sprang a leak. Frank Barton is the descendant of one of those Confederate soldiers, a man named Franklin Hardin Barton. The few steamboats still gliding along the rivers today are usually carrying tourists on short trips. Most were Union soldiers, newly released from Confederate prison camps. 1 was no longer used to manufacture boilers after 1879. "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. What is the allure to your treatment of the Sultana stories? All Rights Reserved. One wall is decorated with the names of every soldier, crewmember, and passenger on the boat on April 27, 1865. 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. Explosion and Burning of the Steamboat Teche on the Mississippi River, May 5, 1825. The huge boats could carry many passengers and large amounts of freight. The exact death toll is unknown, although the most recent evidence indicates that 1,169 died. 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. Explosion of the Oronoko, April 21, 1838, near Princeton, Mississippi. 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. GES: I think the reporting of the Sultana disaster in April and May 1865 was pretty accurate. The rest can be gotten through the internet, which can be a positive thingif done correctly. The violent explosion flung some deck passengers into the water and blew a gaping 2530 foot hole in the steamer. GES: Readers should care about the Sultana since it was the greatest maritime disaster in American history. 5) was built in February 1863, but she was used extensively throughout the last two years of the Civil War to carry Union troops and supplies on the Cumberland and the Mississippi Rivers to aid in the collapse of the Confederacy. Instead of taking two or three days, the temporary repair took only one. Author Q&ADestruction of the Steamboat Sultana, Fred Schultz has been in the publishing business since 1980 and was editor-in-chief of. William "Buck" Leyhe, who had sold Eagle Packet Co. the year before, waits for rescue on Grand Tower Island after the Golden Eagle sank. It was easier to copy everything and not use some of it than to forget to copy something and need it later on. Wolf River. Or does it let would-be historians off the hook from paying their own dues for embarking on the composition of a piece of nonfiction? Fogelman's ancestors didn't have any boats to reach the trapped soldiers, so they improvised. Tubular boilers were discontinued from use on steamboats plying the Lower Mississippi after two more steamboats with tubular boilers exploded shortly after the Sultana explosion. A series of maritime disasters, occurred over the next 120 years before the Coast Guard assumed enforcement responsibility. [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. Barges still carry some goods on the river, but trains and trucks carry most of the freight in America. Almost 1,200 people perished. GES: I am a bit ambivalent about that. 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? Evidence like that may have led the government to downplay the Sultana tragedy, Potter says. [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. After the fall of Vicksburg and Port Hudson, Louisiana, in July 1863 and the opening of the Mississippi, the Sultana was used to bring cotton from parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas that were now under Union control up north so that it could be sent to Eastern manufacturers that had been starving for the raw material. Newspaper accounts suggest John Fogelman and his sons spotted the burning Sultana as the remains of the paddle-wheeler drifted downriver. Persac, Marie Adrien (Artist) Between 1823 and 1848, 365 boats made 7,645 trips. [4]:62, Sultana spent two days traveling upriver, fighting against one of the worst spring floods in the river's history. "The war had just ended a few weeks before," he says. Potter says he went to the library to learn more and wondered, "Why haven't I ever heard of this?" 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. Traveling by steamboat on the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers was common in the 1800s. The Slate Group LLC. It was part of the museum's River Room. It seemed that profit was the driving factor for most steamboat owners and captains. Its sister craft included the Spread Eagle and the Bald Eagle. Bad storms hit the river in the summer. The current was calmer and the channel was deeper. 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. An estimated 1,800 people died in the explosion and ensuing fire more than died in the sinking of the Titanic. On May 19, 1865, less than a month after the disaster, Brigadier General William Hoffman, Commissary General of Prisoners who investigated the disaster, reported an overall loss of soldiers, passengers, and crew of 1,238. The exact number of steamboat accidents in Iowa Rivers is not known. Who Was John Wilkes Booth Before He Became Lincoln's Assassin. No one seemed to question the danger of a steamboat race until there was an accident or the boilers exploded. 3) The design of the boilers. Passing boats and bystanders on both sides of the Mississippi helped pull survivors from the muddy water. 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 On April 21, Sultana left New Orleans with about seventy cabin and deck passengers and a small amount of livestock. 2, a stern-wheel steamboat. 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. 2 As rapidly as the number of steamboats increased, they could not keep pace with demand. Many Sultana survivors ended up on the Arkansas side of the river, which was under Confederate control during the war. 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. [12] In 1880, the War Department placed the number of survivors at 931, but the most recent research places the number at 961. I think reporting was much more accurate, and less political, than it is today. "At 2 a.m., one of the boilers exploded, resulting in two other boilers exploding," Potter says. 1820 1830 April 21, 1838 - Oronoko Most of the passengers were asleep at the time Killed almost everyone either instantly or later from wounds it caused 109 people died 1840 Was traveling to St. Louis when it hit a snag and had several planks torn from the bottom of the boat The steam packet boat is one of the most enduring and iconic images from the glory days of the Steamboat Era. WASHINGTON -- If the U.S. Senate has its way, a 90-year-old steamboat will soon be able to return to the Mississippi River.

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