The Sultana Tragedy

Personal matters have diverted me from my blogging routine, and I’ve found it harder than expected to begin blogging again. I’m just now finding out about the 150^th anniversary events that took place in April in commemoration of the sinking of the Sultana. The steamboat Sultana was packed with men released from prisoner of war camps in the South when it exploded on April 27, 1865. The result was the worst maritime disaster in American history, and, yet, it was an occurrence oddly overlooked, perhaps because it happened soon after Lincoln’s assassination and while Confederate armies were still surrendering. The Sultana was packed with approximately 2,400 passengers, and an estimated 1,800 died as a result of the explosion. Sinking near Mound City, Arkansas, the event has been commemorated for a number of years. I was surprised to learn that there have been twenty-eight reunions of descendants of the Sultana passengers. These have been held in a variety of locations such as Ohio, Vicksburg, Americus, Georgia, and in Marion, Arkansas. For further information about the Sultana and the reunions check out the Sultana Remembered website done by Pam Newhouse, a descendant of an Ohio soldier killed in the explosion.