How Many on the Sultana Died? Expert Will Weigh in on Saturday

[Picket]

Annual Sultana festival will spotlight Civil War maritime disaster, plans for a new museum. https://civil-war-picket.blogspot.co...spotlight.html

[Craig L Barry]

Re: How many on the Sultana died? Expert will weigh in on Saturday.

I did a column on this for Civil War News about a year ago, IIRC I think the guy who wrote a book on the disaster (Gene Salecker) found backing for 1,184 casualties. There is a great account of the sinking by a survivor, Erastus Winters in his Civil War memoirs called "Serving Uncle Sam in the 50th Ohio 1861-1865."

[Picket]

Re: How many on the Sultana died? Expert will weigh in on Saturday.

Thanks, Craig!

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Sultana descendants meeting in Selma, Ala., where many passengers on ill-fated steamboat were Federal prisoners at war's end. http://civil-war-picket.blogspot.com...-in-selma.html

[Craig L Barry]

Re: How Many on the Sultana Died? Expert Will Weigh in on Saturday

Yes, Erastus Winters was captured at Franklin oddly enough. Sent to Cahaba prison. Then ends up on the Sultana. Quite a story.

[DougCooper]

Re: How Many on the Sultana Died? Expert Will Weigh in on Saturday

Reminds me of a terrible accident the day after the truce for Desert Storm - two P-3 aircraft from the same squadron collided at night in covert (emcon) conditions off Southern California - 27 dead in the blink of an eye, about 1/7 of the entire KIA from Desert Shield/Desert Storm. But because it happened right at the end of the war, nobody noticed. The Sultana was a terrible tragedy, as bad or worse than the Titanic, but they never got a Hollywood movie. In another forgotten maritime tragedy my mother in law was a 6 year old girl with her family as one of the last set of refugees turned away from the William Gustoff priot to sailing. The civilian passenger liner was bursting with civilians, wounded soldiers, etc, all fleeing the Soviet Red Army in East Prussian in the winter of 1945. It was almost immediately sunk in the Baltic by a Soviet sub (whose captain knew exactly what he was doing) with the loss of over 8000 lives, easily the worst maritime disaster of all time. They didn't get a movie either.