THE SULTANA DISASTER

THE SULTANA - Timeline to Disaster

Presented here is her story condensed in a timeline summary of certain people and events leading up to the disastrous explosion of the steamboat SULTANA on April 27, 1865. The main purpose is to provide an overall summary that is fairly quick and easy to read and is still informative.
*Click the link bars below to see each dated section.

Our best records show that of a total of 2,137 passengers who were onboard the Sultana that night, 1,169 souls were lost, 1,047 of whom were ex-Union POWs headed home from war, making the Sultana incident the deadliest maritime disaster in U.S. history. Counting those who intitally survived and later died in Memphis hospitals, the total loss of life was probably over 1,800 which was an even greater loss than Titanic.

CREDIT:
Gene E. Salecker
"Destruction of the Steamboat SULTANA", published
March, 2022.
The timeline summary presented here is based on Mr. Salecker's comprehensive book, without which this work would not have been possible.
Summary by Kenneth D. Kidd, Waco TX, direct kin of four TN 3rd Cavalry soldiers who were on SULTANA when she exploded. Two survived, two did not.

The Sultana was a Mississippi steamboat that regularly transported passengers and freight between St. Louis and New Orleans and was designed to hold 375 persons. But due to owner greed and government & military corruption, more than 1,960 Union troops had been crowded onboard for the trip. On the way, about 9 miles above Memphis, TN, on April 27, 1865, around 2 o'clock in the morning, the Sultana suffered a disastrous boiler explosion and burned. A series of three of its four boilers exploded within seconds of one another causing a cascade of other disastrous events onboard.
*Click the link bars below to see each dated section.

To include your stories and
other information in this site,
Email us at Webmaster.


	THE SULTANA - Timeline to Disaster
	Presented here is her story condensed in a timeline summary of certain people and events leading up to the disastrous explosion of the steamboat SULTANA on April 27, 1865. The main purpose is to provide an overall summary that is fairly quick and easy to read and is still informative. *Click the link bars below to see each dated section. Our best records show that of a total of 2,137 passengers who were onboard the Sultana that night, 1,169 souls were lost, 1,047 of whom were ex-Union POWs headed home from war, making the Sultana incident the deadliest maritime disaster in U.S. history. Counting those who intitally survived and later died in Memphis hospitals, the total loss of life was probably over 1,800 which was an even greater loss than Titanic.
CREDIT: Gene E. Salecker "Destruction of the Steamboat SULTANA", published March, 2022. The timeline summary presented here is based on Mr. Salecker's comprehensive book, without which this work would not have been possible. Summary by Kenneth D. Kidd, Waco TX, direct kin of four TN 3rd Cavalry soldiers who were on SULTANA when she exploded. Two survived, two did not.	The Sultana was a Mississippi steamboat that regularly transported passengers and freight between St. Louis and New Orleans and was designed to hold 375 persons. But due to owner greed and government & military corruption, more than 1,960 Union troops had been crowded onboard for the trip. On the way, about 9 miles above Memphis, TN, on April 27, 1865, around 2 o'clock in the morning, the Sultana suffered a disastrous boiler explosion and burned. A series of three of its four boilers exploded within seconds of one another causing a cascade of other disastrous events onboard. *Click the link bars below to see each dated section.
		To include your stories and other information in this site, Email us at Webmaster.