Please use your 'Back' button on your browser for return
This page hosted by 
Get your own Free Home Page
Captain J. C. Mason was troubled on the evening of April 24, 1865. The ship he skippered was heavy laden and although it had a full load of passengers, hundreds of released Civil War prisoners continued streaming aboard.
The Sultana had a limit of 376 passengers including the crew, yet over a thousand people kere already aboard and what seemed like an equal number methodically trudged up the gangplank. River travel was busy in the period near the conclusion of the war and line executives sought to capitalize on the brisk activity.
The Sultana was a sidewheel streamer which had been hauling cotton and other goods and passengers for two years on runs between New Orleans and St. Louis. Since the close of the war she had been taking on more passengers.
The ship left New Orleans three days earlier with nearly a hundred passengers, a hundred head of cattle and a cargo of sugar. After tying up at Vicksburg an officer noticed the boilers were leaking badly.
"What's the assessment of those boilers," Captain Mason asked. "they have to check and repair all boilers. With this load we're going to need more pressure."
The captain's attention was distracted by laughter and shouts of glee and he turned and peered at a group of the Union prisoners.
"Look at those poor Yankee lads," he thought to himself. "They're not much more than skeletons... yet they're in a state of euphoria over the prospects of going home. I would be too if I had just survived the hells of Andersonville."
Mason looked about the Sultana which was burgeoning with humanity and took pleasure for a moment in the thought that he was helping return them to home, a place they had yearned to be for so long. He was soon brought back to the matter at hand.
"I don't need a manifest," he retorted to an assistant. "There's no question that we're overloaded. We'll need every boiler repaired if we are to make Memphis and Cairo."
Although the scheduled stop's included Evansville, Louisville and Cincinnati, Captain Mason learned that most of the released prisoners were midwesterners and would only go as far north as Cairo. Once there they would arrange further transportation to their destinations.
The Sultana was becoming extremely crowded as the released prisoners, along with two companies of soldiers, filled the cabins, decks and pilothouse. There were so many people aboard the ship the normal passenger list was not completed prior to departure.
The boilers performed well for the next 48 hours as the Sultana made several scheduled stops at various ports before the heavily laden ship neared the next destination.
"I want to caution everyone to not crowd to one side of the boat," Captain Mason announced as the Sultana neared the Memphis wharf. "We have so many aboard it could capsize us if you do.
"The two companies of soldiers went ashore at Memphis excepting for a few men and they took in the sights and merriment of the southern city while sugar was being unloaded from the Sultana.
A boiler was again found to be lealdng and it was repaired for the second time on the ship. Captain Mason was deeply troubled with the trip ahead even in light of the ships success thus far. In addition to being overcrowded the current would become increasingly stronger and the boilers acting up seemed to be a bad omen.
Repair work on the boilers was slow and finally completed near midnight. Even with the delay a number of the soldiers didn't return before sailing.
The Sultana crossed the Mississippi River to take on coal before resuming upriver toward Cairo, Illinois. The force of the current became much greater and the river grudgingly gave up ground to the heavily laden ship. Then one of the boilers started leaking.
"I'd give all the interest I have in this steamer if we were safely landed in Cairo," Captain Mason said.
Captain J. C. Mason was the captain of the Sultana which left New Orleans heavy laden on its final voyage on the evening of April 24, 1865.
It was soon after the end of the Civil War and after taking on a large contingent of released Yankee prisoners and two companies of confederate soldiers, the passenger count on the sidewheel steamer was near 2,300. The legal limit was 376.
When boilers on the Sultana began leaking after leaving Memphis Captain Mason became worried. "I'd give all my interest in this steamer if we were safely landed at Cairo," he said earnestly.
The force of the current became greater as the ship passed a difficult stretch of the Mississippi River, a cluster of islands called “the hen and chickens." The river grudgingly gave up ground to the heavily laden ship. After straining against the current the boilers finally had more pressure than they could handle, exploding with a noise that could be heard and seen for miles around.
Hundreds of soldiers were blown with twisted metal into the river as the Sultana halted in the water and then began drifting uncontrollably downriver. Hundreds of men died from the explosion and by drowning. The Yankee prisoners, so weakened from months of malnutrition, could do little to save themselves.
Hundreds of others who were disabled by the blast, or fastened to the ship by metal or wood from the deck, burned in the fires following the explosion. Men who could not swim jumped into the cold waters of the Mississippi.
"I could see hundreds of men jumping in the water until it became black with men... their heads bobbing up and down in the water like corks," a lucky survivor would write. "Many would then disappear in the cold, rough, water... never to appear again."
The primary ship deck collapsed sending hundreds of men still on the ship sliding down the slippery slope, screaming, into a roaring fire. The twin smoke stacks dislodged as the ship teetered, the huge masses pinning men to the Sultana's remains.
Several survivors who were still aboard the ship could be heard yelling "she's sinking!" Other audible sounds were shouts, screams and prayers. Those with a chance of surviving leaped into the dark water. Others were too frightened to abandon the burning oven of a boat.
"Those who couldn't swim and too afraid to jump could be seen clinging to the sides of the bow until they were singed off like flies," a survivor said. "The shrieks and cries were all that could be heard. It reminded me of the stories of doomsday I had heard and read as a child."
Finally what remained of the ship struck one of the series of small islands and sunk with a great hissing noise and pillar of steam.
The river gunboat, U.S.S. Grosbeak, saw the light of the initial explosion and cast off immediately for the site of the wounded steamer. They found many bodies as well as survivors clinging to rafts, logs, barrels, railings and other pieces of wood. Others were found along the shorelines clinging to trees... many badly burned.
Every morning for over two weeks a barge went out to pick up dead bodies.
As many as 1,900 men were killed in the mishap. The exact number will never be known since there was no manifest. There were so many passengers boarding at Vicksburg that Captain Mason said it would take too long to count them. He chose to have a list completed while enroute but any such manifest was lost in the river.
This was at the end of the Civil War and little publicity was given to the incident. Most of the influential newspapers were in the east and this happened far in the west. From the standpoint of lives lost it even exceeded the Titanic.
Hundreds of union soldiers, weakened from months with little food and inadequate clothing, died horrendously.
It remains as one of the worst marine disasters in history.
Editor's Note
Seventy-Seven Years POWELL VALLEY NEWS (USPS 4408-8000) Published each Wednesday by POWELL VALLEY PRINTING COMPANY 125 East Morgan Avenue Pennington Gap, VA 24271 Phone 540-546-1210 FAX 540-546-5468
Rick Watson, Publisher Patricia Ewing, Office Manager
Periodicals Postage Paid at Pennington Can, VA 24277
POSTMASTER: Send address corrections to: Powell Valley News P. O. Box 459 Pennington Can, VA 24277
Subscription Rates: In Lee, Scott, Wise Counties one year-$25.00; two years-$49.00 Payable in Advance Outside Lee County one year-$30.00; two years-$59.00 Payable in Advance
Obituaries are $10.00 Payable in Advance
Card of Thanks are $3.00 Payable in Advance
IN MEMORIAMS Ten cents per word Payable in Advance
Classified Advertising Payable in
Advance
Return to Parker Home