MANSFIELD — The men that boarded the steamship thought they were leaving the Civil War behind them. They finally felt safe.
It was April 1865. The throng of Union soldiers had survived the horrors of war — conflict and captivity, starvation and disease. Now the war was over and they were finally going home.
Hundreds of men poured onto the Sultana steamship, believing it would take them back to the life they had known.
Instead, the majority would perish, not as a result of enemy fire, but of mechanical failures and greed.
Historians estimate that around 1,800 passengers died from the explosion of the Sultana – including about 1,200 Union soldiers recently released from prisoner-of-war camps.
By comparison, the death toll of the Titanic sinking is estimated to be just over 1,500.
Scott Schaut, curator of the Mansfield Memorial Museum, said Richland County was uniquely impacted due to a high concentration of soldiers on board – more than 100 died in a single night.
It all started in Vicksburg, Mississippi.
Following the end of the Civil War, the United States government paid commercial steamships stipends to transport Union POWs released from camps.
The Sultana’s boiler was in need of a major repair, but the ship’s Capt. J. Cass Mason didn’t want to miss out on a business opportunity, so he authorized a quick fix patch job instead.
Mason and the ship’s guards also allowed far more passengers on the boat than its legal carrying capacity. The Sultana was only permitted to carry a total of 376 passengers, including the crew.
While docked in Vicksburg, the Sultana accepted 2,100 prisoners and 200 civilians on board, according to an article from the Lincoln Memorial Shrine, a museum and research center.
“These men died, really, because of greed,” Schaut said.
A faster river current caused by the spring thaw and rains only compounded the ship’s difficulties.
At 2 a.m. on April 27, the patched boilers exploded. The explosion and scalding steam from the boiler killed an estimated 400 men on impact, but the tragedy was just beginning.
Fire spread from the boiler room to engulf the vessel, which sank just a few miles north of Memphis, Tennessee. Soldiers and civilians perished from fire, drowning and exposure.
Most historians place the death toll at around 1,800 people – making it the worst maritime disaster in American History. (More than 1,500 people died from the sinking of the Titanic).
“Most of these guys were emaciated already because they were coming out of prisoner-of-war camps and also they were farm boys so they didn’t really know how to swim,” Schaut said.
The investigation that followed placed most of the blame on Mason. The captain made it through the explosion uninjured, but immediately jumped into action helping people on all three decks and tearing off pieces of the boat to toss into the water for makeshift rafts. He was never seen leaving the wreck and his body was never recovered.
Some alleged that Col. Reuben B. Hatch, quartermaster of the Union officers at Vicksburg, also allowed for the overloading of the ship — possibly in exchange for a kickback from Mason.
It wasn’t the first time Hatch was accused of unscrupulous behavior. He was investigated for fraud in 1862, while serving as a regimental quartermaster. In Destruction of the Steamboat Sultana: The Worst Maritime Disaster In American History, Gene Eric Salecker wrote that a presidential commission found “many mistakes in the Quartermaster’s Department but very little fraud.”
Nevertheless, Hatch continued his military career and was later promoted. Salecker attributed Hatch’s restoration and rise to the influence of powerful family and friends, including President Abraham Lincoln himself.
When the Sultana case was brought to court, Hatch refused to testify. After ignoring multiple summons, he managed to evade the U.S. Marshalls sent to his home and never appeared in court.
So why aren’t we more familiar with the Sultana Disaster?
Schaut said the news was largely drowned out by other major events at the time – the nation was celebrating the end of a four-year conflict and reeling from the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln just two weeks earlier.
Nevertheless, the story of the Sultana was not forgotten, and may be permanently commemorated with its own museum in Arkansas.
The city of Marion is located opposite Memphis across the Mississippi River. The city established a temporary museum in 2015 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the sinking.
Today, a permanent museum tells the Sultana story in Marion. The Sultana Historic Preservation Society is working on an expansion project to relocate The Sultana Disaster Museum to a 17,000 square-foot facility, according to the museum’s website.
On July 19, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced the City of Marion will receive a $1 million American Rescue Plan grant for the project.
In Mansfield, history buffs can visit two plaques dedicated to the memory of those lost on the Sultana.
One, located in South Park, lists the names of the 73 men of the 102nd Ohio Volunteer Infantry who died from the explosion. According to the plaque, the 102nd OVI lost more men from the Sultana Disaster than any other infantry regiment.
Another plaque, affixed to the exterior wall of the Mansfield Memorial Museum, lists the names of 101 men from Richland County who perished. The plaque includes soldiers from McLaughlin’s Squadron Calvary, the 15th OVI, 64th OVI, 65th OVI and 102nd OVI.
