The Tragic End of the Steamboat Sultana

On April 27, 1865, just weeks after the Civil War ended and the country reeled from the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, a deadly explosion on the Mississippi River became the worst maritime disaster in U.S. history—and most Americans have never heard of it.

The Sultana, a Civil War-era steamboat built to carry a few hundred passengers, was pushed far beyond its limits with more than 2,100 souls crammed aboard—mostly Union soldiers who had survived Confederate prison camps like Andersonville and Cahaba. But just north of Memphis, Tennessee, the Sultana’s patched boiler exploded in the dead of night, setting off a catastrophic chain of events that would leave over a thousand men dead, their bodies scattered across the dark Mississippi waters.

In this episode, we tell the chilling, little-known story of greed, corruption, and human tragedy that led to this horrific event. You’ll hear firsthand survivor accounts, the murky decisions that caused the explosion, and how the legacy of the Sultana has been buried—both by history and by the river itself.

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