Sultana Explodes: 1,700 Die in America's Deadliest Maritime Disaster
The steamboat SS Sultana exploded on the Mississippi River near Memphis on April 27, 1865, killing an estimated 1,168 of the 2,427 people aboard, most of them Union soldiers recently released from the Confederate prison camps at Andersonville and Cahaba. The ship was legally rated for 376 passengers. The cause was a boiler explosion, likely due to a hastily repaired patch on one of the four boilers. The disaster received little press coverage because it occurred the same day John Wilkes Booth was killed and Jefferson Davis was fleeing south. The Sultana death toll exceeded the Titanic's by more than 200. It remains the deadliest maritime disaster in US history, yet most Americans have never heard of it because it was eclipsed by the drama surrounding Lincoln's assassination.
April 27, 1865
161 years ago
Key Figures & Places
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