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I will see your Eastland and raise you the even more obscure sinking of Mississippi steamboat Sultana in 1865. Loss of life between 1168 and 1547. It's the wo

by reddog 6y ago

I will see your Eastland and raise you the even more obscure sinking of Mississippi steamboat Sultana in 1865. Loss of life between 1168 and 1547. It's the worst maritime disaster in US history (the Titanic was an British ship in international waters with an international passenger list). The reason you've never heard of it is because Abraham Lincoln was assassinated the day before, an event that sucked up all the nations newsprint and popular attention. There is a pretty good documentary on it on one of the big streaming services. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_maritime_disasters_in_the_19th_century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_maritime_disasters_in_...

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garmaine 6y ago
How is there that much uncertainty about the number of people killed?
- chiph 6y ago
  1865 - things were a lot more casual back then. No passenger manifests (or lifejackets..)
- reddog 6y ago
  The civil war was still going on although Lee had surrendered so a lot of formalities like passenger manifests were pro forma especially for military transport. The passengers consisted mainly of released Union POWs that were trying to get back home after years of hell in Confederate camps and they were in various states of health. The Union army had commissioned the ship to take as many of these soldiers north as it could carry and it was seriously overloaded.
gerdesj 6y ago
Fair one but rather a lot of that list of maritime disasters has white and red ensigns (UK) next to them. We obviously haven't quite got the hang of the big blue wobbly stuff. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sultana_(steamboat) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sultana_(steamboat) is well worth a read. It is well written in my opinion and the Talk page only has the usual nonsense "controversy" on it. This time it's whether to worry about SS as a naming prefix!
- TylerE 6y ago
  That's just what you'd expect, as in the 19th century Britain probably had more ocean going vessels than the rest of the world COMBINED.
- itcrowd 6y ago
  The SS prefix "controversy" is a funny read on the talk page! Thanks.

by reddog 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

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garmaine 6y ago

How is there that much uncertainty about the number of people killed?

chiph 6y ago
1865 - things were a lot more casual back then. No passenger manifests (or lifejackets..)
reddog 6y ago
The civil war was still going on although Lee had surrendered so a lot of formalities like passenger manifests were pro forma especially for military transport. The passengers consisted mainly of released Union POWs that were trying to get back home after years of hell in Confederate camps and they were in various states of health. The Union army had commissioned the ship to take as many of these soldiers north as it could carry and it was seriously overloaded.

gerdesj 6y ago

Fair one but rather a lot of that list of maritime disasters has white and red ensigns (UK) next to them. We obviously haven't quite got the hang of the big blue wobbly stuff. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sultana_(steamboat) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sultana_(steamboat) is well worth a read. It is well written in my opinion and the Talk page only has the usual nonsense "controversy" on it. This time it's whether to worry about SS as a naming prefix!

TylerE 6y ago
That's just what you'd expect, as in the 19th century Britain probably had more ocean going vessels than the rest of the world COMBINED.
itcrowd 6y ago
The SS prefix "controversy" is a funny read on the talk page! Thanks.