Sultana: Surviving the Civil War, Prison, and the Worst Maritime Disaster in American History

On an April night in 1865, the steamboat Sultana slowly moved up the Mississippi, its overtaxed engines straining under the weight of an estimated 2,400 passengers. Most were sick or injured Union soldiers recently paroled from Confederate prison camps. At 2:00 a.m., near Mound City, Arkansas, three of the Sultana’s four boilers exploded. The ship sank within 20 minutes, taking with it an estimated 1,700 lives.

The Sultana remains the worst maritime disaster in American history. Yet it soon faded into obscurity, lost among the many historic events that took place at the end of the Civil War. Sultana tells the story of three soldiers who survived the war and prison camps only to be forced to fight for their lives in the shipwreck. This stunning account of human endurance and adventure brings recognition to a nearly forgotten chapter of American history.

Alan Huffman is a freelance journalist whose books include Mississippi in Africa, which was a semi—finalist for the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, was selected as a “Best Book of 2004” by the San Francisco Chronicle, and received the McLemore Prize. He is a frequent guest on NPR’s programs, and has contributed to Smithsonian Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, and the Washington Post Magazine.

“Alan Huffman has managed to combine civil war history with the science of human survival to produce one of the most riveting war stories I have ever read.” — Sebastian Junger, author of The Perfect Storm