Sultana (steamboat)

Sultana was a commercial side-wheelsteamboat which exploded and sank on the Mississippi River on April 27, 1865, killing 1,164 people in what remains the worst maritime disaster in United States history.

Constructed of wood in 1863 by the John Litherbury Boatyard in Cincinnati, Ohio, Sultana was intended for the lower Mississippi cotton trade. The steamer registered 1,719 tons and normally carried a crew of 85. For two years, she ran a regular route between St. Louis and New Orleans and was frequently commissioned to carry troops during the American Civil War. Although designed with a capacity of only 376 passengers and 85 crewmembers, she was carrying 2,127 when three of the boat's four boilers exploded and caused her to sink near Memphis, Tennessee. The disaster was overshadowed in the press by events surrounding the end of the Civil War, including the killing of President Abraham Lincoln's assassin John Wilkes Booth just the day before. No one was ever held accountable for the disaster.