steamboat wrecks on the mississippi river

"It was like a tremendous bomb going off in the middle of where these men were," Potter says. The Nick Wall, named for a noteworthy Missouri River riverboat captain, was a 338-ton sternwheel paddleboat built in 1869 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In the 1820s, steamboats on the Mississippi carried lead from Julien Dubuque's lead mines near Dubuque. A crew member fished liquor bottles from the half-flooded bar. Now, through the use of the internet, people can search hundred, perhaps thousands, of newspapers, from the United States as well as from around the world. Built in New Albany, Indiana, in 1832, the steamboat Heroine plied the Ohio and Mississippi from its launch in that year until in 1838 a navigation disaster left it beneath the waters of the Red River. After days in flood stage, the Mississippi River appeared to be at crest in Lansing, Iowa Friday evening as the river has spent hours below the max daily crest. Is it a good thing? Three civilian victims of the wreck of Sultana are interred at Elmwood Cemetery in Memphis. The power of the boilers came with risk - the water levels in the fire tubes had to be carefully maintained at all times. But what the museum really has to offer is a powerful story of soldiers who died just days away from seeing their families and loved ones. But there were many other reasons the event didn't get much attention at the time. The Princess ran weekly round trips from New Orleans to Vicksburg, Mississippi and back, departing the New Orleans wharf promptly at 5 p.m. every Tuesday. As stated in the 1903 newspaper article, the log was mistakenly taken by Sultana. ", Jerry Potter, lawyer and author of The Sultana Tragedy. The few steamboats still gliding along the rivers today are usually carrying tourists on short trips. The Golden Eagle was bound for Nashville, Tenn., from its St. Louis home via the Ohio and Cumberland rivers. "It won't move!" What effect did steamboats and travel on the river have on the development of Iowa? [8], In 2015, on the 150th anniversary of the disaster, an interim Sultana Disaster Museum was opened in Marion, Arkansas, the closest town to the buried remains of the steamboat,[citation needed] across the Mississippi River from Memphis. [18] Louden, a former Confederate agent and saboteur who operated in and around St. Louis, had been responsible for the burning of the steamboat Ruth. Steamboating | Tennessee Encyclopedia Shipwreck found in Mississippi River near Grand Tower, Ill. - KFVS12 Sometimes these snags stuck out of the water. In his book, he builds a strong case against the boat's captain and co-owner, J. Cass Mason. Many of the stories that the newspapers got from survivors were not always correct (one man said that there were people from every state in the Union on boardnot so), but they were reporting what they were told. As for the Sultana disaster itself, it was clearly a case of putting profit over safety. On his trips up and down the river, Odis often took his wife, Rosa, along. Heroine (steamboat) | The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture Savannah Davis, 23, died from blunt . Leyhe died in St. Louis in 1956 at age 83. "All the boilers, four in number, burst simultaneously . "All them boys . Through the corruption of Captain Reuben Hatch, a Union officer at Vicksburg, Mississippi, and the captain of the Sultana, James Cass Mason, those 2,000 ex-prisoners were crowded onto a boat with a legal carrying capacity of only 376 passengers. On the decks the passengers cheered as the boat headed up the river. Late in April of 1865, the Mississippi stood at flood stage. Under the command of Captain James Cass Mason of St. Louis, Sultana left St. Louis on April 13, 1865, bound for New Orleans. And, in fact, when the boats used the regular flue boilers, the sediment in the water was not too much of a problem. Like us onFacebook, follow us on Twitter@slatevault, and find us onTumblr. April 27, 2023. Mississippi River waters keep rising in Iowa and Illinois | KTLA Buried treasure: Long lost Steamboat Malta found under Missouri - KMBC [4]:146147,168176, Passengers who survived the initial explosion had to risk their lives in the icy spring runoff of the Mississippi or burn with the boat. The main channel now flows about 2 miles (3km) east of its 1865 position. "We feel like we're a part of this Civil War story, but we're the conclusion that no one heard," says Lisa O'Neal, a Marion resident and member of the Sultana Historic Preservation Society. . All the examined boat wrecks were working vessels, towboats or barges, so the artifacts and other data gave a glimpse into the lives of river men on the Mississippi around the turn of the 20 th century. The train . [4]:72 Sultana subsequently arrived at Memphis, Tennessee, around 7:00 PM, and the crew began unloading 120 tons (109 tonnes) of sugar from the hold. The vessel was heading from St . However, Sultana was a coal-burning boat and not a wood-burner. The Wreck of the Sultana. 1, which tends to become brittle with prolonged heating and cooling. The exact number of steamboat accidents in Iowa Rivers is not known. That is a sunken ship almost every 3 miles! Steamboat companies often made huge profits by carrying tons of cargo to rapidly growing communities. Thousands of recently released Union prisoners of war who had been held in the Confederate prison camps at Cahaba and Andersonville had been brought to a small parole camp outside of Vicksburg to await release to the northern states. web oct 10 2017 it was the steamboat sultana on the mississippi river and it could have been prevented in 1865 the civil war was winding down and the . As to whether it is a good thing or not, yes, I believe that it is a good thing to do so much research and get so much information from the internet. Barges still carry some goods on the river, but trains and trucks carry most of the freight in America. You've read 1 out of 5 free articles of Naval History this month. Steamboat Princess Disaster On February 27, 1859, the Steamboat Princess exploded on the Mississippi River killing between 70 and 200 passengers and crew. [4]:33,3435,38,4041, While the paroled prisoners, primarily from the states of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia,[4]:226290 were brought from the parole camp to Sultana, a mechanic was brought down to work on the leaky boiler. When the boat tipped the other way, water rushing back into the empty boiler would hit the hot spots and flash instantly to steam, creating a sudden surge in pressure. GES: Sultana (No. The fires still going against the empty boiler created hot spots. The Eclipse was a steamboat that struck a snag on the Mississippi River near Osceola (Mississippi County) on September 12, 1925; a deckhand and a passenger lost their lives in the accident. Steamboat - Wikipedia Maintaining a posted schedule was important in the competitive business of steamboat commerce. The flaming hull drifted onto a shoreline sandbar and grounded. Steamboats brought supplies to the new Iowans and transported their produce and products to market. The museum also features many artifacts from the Sultana Survivor's Association, as well as a fourteen-foot model replica of the boat. Highlights of the Mississippi River Cruise: Round-trip from New Orleans Length: Five days Price: Starts at $2,405 per person Enjoy a complimentary overnight in New Orleans before embarking on. How do you feel about that? Although one of the Sultanas boilers was being repaired when the ex-prisoners were being crowded aboard the boat, none of the Union officers seemed to mind. He was company president for many years and sold the company in 1946. Irregular river depth, sandbars and snags made steamboat travel on the Missouri slow and dangerous. The men located around the twin openings quickly crawled under the wreckage and down the main stairs. By Commander Robert Frank Bennett, U. S. Coast Guard. The sternwheel paddleboat that would later be named the Eclipse was built in 1901 at St. Joseph, Missouri, for Captain A. Stewart for service on the Missouri River, and was christened the City of St. Joseph . Cape Girardeau:Later renamed the River Queen, the vessel sank in 1968. No one seemed to question the danger of a steamboat race until there was an accident or the boilers exploded. Sultana launched on January 3, 1863, the fifth steamboat to bear the name. Jan. 3, 1844 Steamboat wreck kills as many as 70 on the Mississippi at St. Louis By Tim O'Neil St. Louis Post-Dispatch Jan 3, 2023 0 1 of 2 Steamboats and freight wagons crowd the St. Louis. Senate advances rules exemption for Delta Queen On March 26, 1915, while the Alice Miller was laid up at Vicksburg, fire broke out in the kitchen, and the boat was destroyed. Soldiers from Kentucky and Tennessee were among the first to die, he says, "because they'd been packed in next to the boilers. The First Bridge Over the Mississippi and the Effie Afton FS: Which cargo would you say was more important and most profitablethe goods and materials or the obviously wealthy patrons who were there just for a glamorous boat ride? BNSF freight train derails along Mississippi River in Wisconsin Burning of the Orline St. John, near Montgomery, Alabama, March 2, 1850. The Mississippi River has changed course several times since the disaster, leaving the wreck under dry land and far from today's river. The owners of the Effie Afton decided to take the railroad companies that had built the bridge to court. This list may not reflect recent changes . . GES: I think the reporting of the Sultana disaster in April and May 1865 was pretty accurate. GRAND TOWER, ILL. It was the first trip of the season for the Golden Eagle, an antique steamboat with twin stacks, gingerbread woodwork and a splashing sternwheel. The story of the Sultana isn't well-known even among people who live along the Mississippi. hide caption. Almost 1,200 people perished. Why should potential readers care? The Sultana made it only a few miles north of Memphis. (The whole book is digitally available via the Library of Congress, on the Internet Archive.). A female fan exclaimed what a lovely shade of Cardinal in reference to the trim on the new uniforms. On a landscape lacking roads but braided with bayous and rivers, travel via water was the only efficient means of transportation. From 1817 to 1871, about 5,600 people died on Mississippi River wrecks of all sorts, including burst boilers, collisions and fires. She also carried a crew of 85. BNSF said in a statement that two of . "The boat had a legal carrying capacity of 376 passengers," he says, "and on its up-river trip it had over 2,500 aboard," in part because the government had agreed to pay $5 for each enlisted man and $10 for each officer who made the trip. Beneath Tennessee River, Steamboat Wreckage Presents Mystery Further back, the collapsing decks formed a slope that led down into the exposed furnace boxes. Also, many people chose to pay for only deck passage, which restricted the traveler to the lowest (main) deck. The Sultana was on its way from Vicksburg, Miss., to St. Louis when the explosion occurred, says Jerry Potter, a Memphis lawyer and author of The Sultana Tragedy. The Tricky Missouri River and the Steamboat Bertrand, The First Bridge Over the Mississippi and the Effie Afton, Majestic Riverboat Reigned on the Mississippi, Simulated travel guide describing travel conditions in Iowa from 1830 to 1879, Personal accounts from a steamboat captain describing life on the Mississippi transporting lumber, Article describes the history of steamboats in Iowa City in the 1800s, Transcribed official records, newspaper clippings, historical accounts and diary entries about life on the Mississippi River, Transcribed official records, newspaper clippings, historical accounts and diary entries about life on the Missouri River, Audio story about the last riverboat gambling cruise of the Mississippi Belle II in 2007, Ginalie Swaim Ed., Steaming Up the River,. The Sultana was especially helpful to the Union forces under General Ulysses S. Grant as he moved to capture Vicksburg, Mississippi, and open the Mississippi River to Union navigation. The Sultana Disaster | American Battlefield Trust Among its owners on that day was Herman Pott, St. Louis boatbuilder. Featured in the museum are a few relics from Sultana such as shaker plates from the boat's furnace, furnace bricks, a few pieces of wood, and some small metal pieces. Get up-close and in-depth when examining artifacts such as photographs. Everyone escaped to the muddy, isolated safety of Grand Tower Island. William "Buck" Lehye, who sold the Golden Eagle one year before, and Mrs. Frank Lind, a lifelong fancier of steamboat travel. It's estimated between 300 and 400 boats have sunk along the Missouri River.