Obscure American history trivia

Was it the boat that sunk in the East River around the turn of the century? Can’t remember the name of it right now.

 

The Sultana, which started on fire and sank while returning north carrying Union prisoners from the Civil War?

 

That is correct. Happened on this date in 1865, although it exploded and then burned.
The Sultana was a steamboat making its way up the Mississippi River. It stopped in Vicksburg on April 23, 1865, and the captain picked up a contract to ferry prisoners up north. Unfortunately, the boat had a capacity of about 450 people and took on more than 2,000. Combined with a fault boiler that was in need of repair, it was a recipe for disaster.
The Sultana got north of Memphis when the combination of being overloaded, going upstream on a flooded river, and constantly listing to one side or the other — which led to the water in the boilers shifting rapidly from one to the other and flash steaming — became too much. The boilers exploded just north of Memphis and the ship caught fire, killing 1,169 people.
A number of those killed were crushed when the smokestacks collapsed onto and then through the deck.

Not only is it the worst maritime disaster in American history, it's one of the worst single-ship disasters in all of world history.

https://www.thesultanaassociation.com/the-disaster

 

I saw a documentary on that awhile back -- maybe it was a PBS American Experience? There was all sorts of corruption involved in that incident.

 

Quick Google search shows it was likely History Detectives.

Civil War Sabotage? | History Detectives | PBS

 

Sultana

Edit: Dang. Didn't realize there was another page and someone beat me to it!

 

It was only supposed to be a three-hour tour. Why did the wealthy couple, movie star and the farm girl pack multiple outfits?

 

And if it was a three-hour tour, that means about 90 minutes out and 90 minutes back, right? How far could a boat the size of the Minnow get in that time? Maybe 20 or 30 miles from port in what I assume was Honolulu?
I know there are a lot of tiny islands scattered around the Hawaiian chain, but there can't be that many within 20 or 30 miles of Honolulu that are unknown. Whoever was searching for them was really shitty at their job not to find them.

 

I was reading Wikipedia -- a group thinks it found the wreck buried in a soybean field a couple miles from the current course of the river. Interesting that the Mississippi has moved that much in 150 years.

 

When the Mississippi River wants to change its course and there's nothing there to stop it, it doesn't take long. I shared this on another thread, but it's a story about the time the river shifted course in Vicksburg in 1876 — coincidentally, almost 11 years to the day after the Sultana disaster — and its aftermath. The river literally changed course within a few hours. People were out in boats watching it.

https://www.vicksburgpost.com/2022/...ksburg-lost-the-river-they-built-another-one/

 

River really changed course late 1811, early 1812, creating Reelfoot Lake.

I have a letter written by my third-great grandfather from Vicksburg in early 1863 talking about capturing a Union ironclad. I kind of think it was the Indianola.

 

It's changed course a bunch. 1876 was just the last major one. There are all kinds of ghost towns, oxbow lakes, and odd bits of geography up and down the river that resulted from course changes.
In fact, there's a major one waiting to happen in Louisiana. The Mississippi River wants to run through the Atchafalaya River bed to the west, but the Corps of Engineers has some control structures keeping it flowing where it's flowing. If it ever shifted, Baton Rouge and New Orleans would be sans river in pretty short order.