At two o’clock in the morning on 27 April 1865, seven miles north of Memphis on the Mississippi, the sidewheel steamboat Sultana’s boilers suddenly exploded

The Sultana was a sidewheel Mississippi steamboat carrying almost two thousand recently-released Union prisoners-of-war back north at the end of the Civil War.

The Sultana was a sidewheel Mississippi steamboat carrying almost two thousand recently-released Union prisoners-of-war back north at the end of the Civil War.

Lee Surrenders! "President Murdered!" "Booth Killed!" screamed the headlines of American newspapers in April 1865, leaving little room for mention of a maritime