04-27-2025 - On This Day in Insane History

On April 27, 1865, the Mississippi River steamboat Sultana became the site of the most catastrophic maritime disaster in United States history, a tragedy that would be overshadowed by the recent assassination of President Lincoln but was no less horrifying.

Chartered to transport Union soldiers recently released from Confederate prisoner-of-war camps, the Sultana was criminally overloaded with approximately 2,400 passengers—six times its intended capacity. These war-weary men, many weakened by imprisonment and malnutrition, crowded onto the vessel near Memphis, Tennessee, unaware of their impending doom.

At around 2 a.m., the ship's boilers explosively ruptured, sending scalding steam and massive sections of the wooden vessel into the frigid April waters of the Mississippi. The explosion was so powerful that it virtually disintegrated the steamboat, hurling men into the dark, cold river. Of the estimated 2,400 passengers, only 768 survived, with many dying from burns, drowning, or hypothermia.

The disaster was exacerbated by a combination of criminal negligence, wartime chaos, and a corrupt kickback system that incentivized overloading military transport vessels. Maritime investigators later determined that the ship's boilers, which had been hastily repaired, were fundamentally unsound and unable to handle the excessive passenger load.

Remarkably, this catastrophic event received minimal national attention, lost in the tumultuous aftermath of the Civil War's conclusion—a testament to the era's overwhelming tragedy and resilience.