It's time for a historical fiction about the Sultana disaster. Coming Summer 2014. "Yours," by Lila Jeanne Elliott Sybesma
The Sultana’s Last Voyage
The Sultana was the worst maritime disaster in U.S. history. Over 1,500 soldiers and civilians lost their
lives. With Abraham Lincoln’s assassination and General Lee’s surrender at Appomattox grabbing the headlines,
the disaster took little space in the newspapers of that day. The passengers
were soldiers, after all, and after four years of bloodshed, people were ready
to put the war behind them.
There may have been cover-up as well.
The boat, intended for 376 passengers, was loaded with almost 2,500
people, most of them soldiers. After surviving some of the Civil War’s
bloodiest battles, like Shiloh, Perryville and Franklin, and after surviving
prison of war camps, like Andersonville and Cahaba, they were finally going
home.
The Sultana was loaded with freight as well. It carried more than
240,000 pounds of sugar and almost 100 horses…and even an alligator.
With the promise of $5.00 per soldier, the owners had the boiler hastily
repaired and headed north. Unaware of
the boiler’s condition, the soldiers spent their last hours celebrating their
new freedom: singing songs, playing tricks, telling jokes and talking of home.
Flood waters made upriver travel more arduous. With the weight of the soldiers, the boat careened
at every corner, further compromising the walls of the boiler.
On April 27, 1865, just north of Memphis, Tennessee, the boilers
exploded and the soldiers were confronted with a fatal decision: stay on the
boat and face the flames, or take to the icy Mississippi. In their emaciated
condition, the soldiers didn’t have a chance.
Fewer than 500 survived.
I saw
that the men were jumping from all parts of the boat into the river. Such
screams I never heard, twenty or thirty men jumping off at a time, many
lighting on those already in the water, until the river became black with men,
their heads bobbing up like corks, and then many disappearing never to appear
again. Joseph
Taylor Elliott
The
hold of the boat was full of comrades. They cried for the door of the hold to
be opened. My chum and I pulled the door away, when they came rushing out of
the hold like bees out of a hive, followed by dense clouds of steam and smoke. Ogilvie E. Hamblin
The agonizing shrieks and groans of the
injured and the dying were heart-rendering, and the stench of burning flesh was
intolerable and beyond any power of description. William Fies
While
we were clinging to the tree we saw in the distance the hull of the “Sultana”
come floating down the river, with a dozen or more boys still clinging to the
burning wreck. Hugh
Kinser
These noble men who had faced battle in all
its fury; who had not flinched when the word “forward” came, even though in the
face of the cannon or screaming shell; had faced worse than death at
Andersonville, standing there on the bow of that burning boat wringing their
hands, rushing to and fro begging their comrades to assist them that their
lives might be saved to their dear ones. A.A. Jones