Loss of the Sultana and Reminiscences of Survivors

Originally published in 1892, Loss of the Sultana and Reminiscences of Survivors is a collection of firsthand accounts by those who lived to tell the story of perhaps the worst maritime disaster in US history. On the Mississippi River just above Memphis at two o’clock on the morning of April 27, 1865, the steamboat Sultana, carrying more than 2,400 passengers (it was licensed to carry only 356), exploded and sank. More than 1,700 people perished. Most of the passengers were Union soldiers r...