It has often been shown in history that those who fight some of the fiercest battles can sometimes get engulfed by death and destruction even after their ordeal had apparently ended.
The forgotten fate of around 1,800 union soldiers who gladly boarded a steamboat in the aftermath of the fall of the Confederacy had no idea that despite their escape from hell, a new kind of hell awaited them in the icy Mississippi river.
Around the time of the American Civil War, the steamboats were regarded as both a boom for the local town’s economies and a potentially dangerous mode of transportation. At the time, people and authorities gave more priority to the economy over the safety of the locals.
The steamboats carried the stigma of water travel, as it is always not an easy endeavour on a wooden boat, especially if the water it travels in is a raging river. These boats were not adequately sanitised, and conditions were not great health and safety wise.
On top of all these flaws, a seemingly negligible factor became dangerous when you consider that these boats ran on power generated by fire and water pressure: a potentially deadly combination if luck isn’t on your side.
The added element of danger gets even more alarming when one considers that these boats were not regulated by the authorities until a large number of disasters and scores of human lives had been lost.
The Steamboat Sultana was no exception and carried all the potential dangers mentioned above when it carried over 2,000 Union soldiers who had been recently released to their homes after the end of the deadly American Civil War.
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