Sultana: A Case For Sabotage

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Convicted of destroying a steamer carrying millions of payroll meant for Grant's forces, sentenced to death, and coming within minutes of hanging, find out how Lincoln's stay of execution of Robert Louden may have led to a worse maritime disaster than the sinking of Titanic. Among the steamboats destroyed on the Mississippi River, the one with the largest single loss of life was the steamer Sultana.

The boat had been loaded with over people, most of them Union POWs returning from Southern prison camps. When the Sultana exploded and burned, as many as people were killed as many Union soldiers died on the river that night as died on the battlefield of Shiloh. With them died a number of women, children, and civilian men. Was it an accident? Without warning, an explosion ripped through the boilers, scalding steam burst out, and a shower of flaming coal shot upward into the night, raining down on the crowded boat, which in moments was engulfed in flames.

Over seventeen hundred people died, making the destruction of Sultana a maritime disaster worse than the sinking of the Titanic. Read more Read less. Add all three to Cart Add all three to List. Some of these items ship sooner than the others. Buy the selected items together This item: Ships from and sold by Amazon.

Customers who bought this item also bought. Page 1 of 1 Start over Page 1 of 1. Here's how restrictions apply. About the Author D. Variations on a Theme August 31, Language: Print edition purchase must be sold by Amazon. Thousands of books are eligible, including current and former best sellers. Look for the Kindle MatchBook icon on print and Kindle book detail pages of qualifying books. Print edition must be purchased new and sold by Amazon. And, since Louden died in , Grimes should have had no fear of causing harm to Louden by telling the truth, if indeed Louden had committed the heinous act.

And, since both Grimes and Louden lived in St. Louis after the war, it is hard to believe that Grimes would not have known that his compatriot and friend had been the cause of the worst maritime disaster of all time at that time and would not have put it in his memoirs! Although Rule writes that the destruction of the U. This argument unfortunately demonstrates Mr. Salecker's unfamiliarity with the overall situation in regards to Confederate agents, and secret service activities, at the time of the war and in later years as memoirs were being written and published.

It is not an exaggeration to say there was a "code of silence" among the Confederate agents. The code of silence was published and came from the highest authority. Castleman and Basil Duke announced their intention to publish stories of Confederate secret service activities, Jefferson Davis himself wrote to them and implored ordered?

Castleman also is responsible for sabotaging steamboats on the Mississippi and was connected to the very organization of saboteurs of which Louden was a part. Absalom Grimes' memoirs reflect his adherence to both the code of silence as well as to protecting his own safety. He tells his personal tale of mail smuggling and escapes, with Louden included where the adventure requires. He leaves out material pertaining to the Confederate secret service activities and other agents even where contemporary documentation makes his knowledge and connections evident.

Of the burning of the Ruth , Grimes says [my underlining], " at this late date it is safe to say In , at age 76, Grimes finally felt it was safe to acknowledge that Louden, who had been dead for over forty years, really did commit an act for which he had long since been convicted and confessed. As to the destruction of the Baron De Kalb , space limitations in the published article did not permit more lengthy discussions of some areas, this being one. Louden's location can be established to within days either side of the DeKalb , with every indication he was a participant and no contradictory evidence that he was elsewhere.

Still, the careful historian must say "probably". Grimes' own position in , the time of the Sultana incident; in , the time of Streetor's article; and in , the writing of his memoirs, all have one other overriding thing in common: His pardon was dated December of He could not, and does not, admit to wartime connection to Louden after that date. Even ignoring that, as our current debate here demonstrates, there is and was no time in which the destruction of the Sultana was not a volatile subject.

What could Grimes say of Louden and the Sultana? There is exactly one thing he could say: Grimes' silence on the subject is more damning than his words. Louis during the Civil War when Louden was held prisoner there in and After the war, in , the two men worked together in St.

Louden had fled St. Louis] that he told me the story of how he smuggled the torpedo on board the Sultana. The short time between the time of Louden's confession and the time he left St. Louis suggests that, lacking any legal actions that could be taken against him, his admission to Streetor still presented Louden with a very real peril to life and limb.

The court martial trial of one of the officers accused of overloading the Sultana had ended only a year before in June and in an important river town such as St. Louis, the home port of the Sultana , the memory of the Sultana would have been alive and well. Streetor is the man I have portrayed him to be. I have a great deal of documentation stretching from to supporting this. Streetor wasn't a famous man and doesn't seem to have craved fame. His letters show a man of modest good humor, of forthright and unassuming character. His role during the Civil War was one of highest trust, a position he maintained through several Department of Missouri administrations and Provost Marshals.

I have found not one word of reproach or doubt expressed by any of them about Streetor. His loyalty is unassailable. That he enlisted in Union service in May of in St. Louis speaks volumes about the loyalty of this man. Leighton's opinion of Streetor over that of Gene E. The court martial for overloading the Sultana had nothing to do with the explosion's cause. Nothing relating to the cause of the explosion affects the equally heinous crime in loading so many men on the boat. It is not "a certainty" that Streetor's story did not come out before The article itself says Streetor spoke "in reply to an inquiry.

Louis article no one, including Mr. Salecker, knew it existed. Even in it "made headlines" only in St. Louis with the Memphis version of the article being only a short summary. What else may lie in unexplored archives remains to be seen. It appears as though Streetor hung on every word that Louden uttered. With a man like Streetor at his elbow, a drunken Louden could clearly make outlandish claims of notoriety, fully expecting that his words would be believed beyond a shadow of a doubt. What sounds to Mr. Here's the article, decide for yourself Present day sensibilities would have us calling Louden a "coward" in such an article.

Such was not the case at that time. To call an enemy, even a reprehensible one, "brave" did not imply admiration. At that, Streetor qualifies it was "bravery of a certain kind ".

Sultana A Case For Sabotage

Streetor even called Louden "notorious". The story about floating down the river in the coffin certainly is one of boldness and daring and might, at other times and from other people, be taken for baseless, drunken bragging. Salecker is apparently unaware, the story is not particularly unusual for that time and place, with comparable actions documented by numerous others. It's not even one of Louden's most brazen actions even of those carefully documented by Federal sources from Federal witnesses.

Louden and Grimes floated through the gunboat blockade of Vicksburg clinging to a rowboat submerged to within an inch of the surface. Others got through holding to floating logs or debris. When Salecker speaks of Louden making "outlandish claims of notoriety" he is writing nothing but opinion. Louden's notoriety is clear, evident, and well-documented. As well as contemporary newspaper accounts, the pages of Louden's trial transcripts are a matter of public record. However, we must take responsibility for Salecker misunderstanding the "remarkable man" comment.

Formatting of the article on the website revised some original punctuation now corrected. The "remarkable man" description was the reporter's comment. It was also the reporter relaying the coffin story. We're to believe that Streetor, this alleged hero-worshipper, would bait his "hero" into admitting an act that could get him lynched? The publication of which could cause serious discomfort for Louden's surviving wife and children still living in St.

And that didn't even reflect particularly well on Streetor himself? The man who placed the torpedo on the boat is [Robert Louden. The facts and eyewitness statements suggest otherwise. The physical size of the Courtenay Torpedo is such that it was 1 large enough to cause the destruction of boilers, yet 2 small enough not to attract notice among the other lumps of coal.

Let us analyze this possibility. Quoted correctly, Streetor says, " The boat docked by nosing into a wharfboat usually a derelict steamboat tied parallel to the levee. In this fashion, other steamboats could slide up beside the Sultana and a number of boats could utilize the wharfboat at the same time.

Similar to parking cars side-by-side, as opposed to parallel parking. Lanterns aboard the Sultana , and aboard and around the wharfboat, would have illuminated the entire area. Areas specific to the Sultana are Mr. His long years of research show and provide vivid and interesting background for the various scenarios. Once docked, a large cargo of sugar was removed from the hold of the Sultana.

Some, however, managed to get away before the guards were in place while others got away by helping to roll the huge hogsheads of sugar to the top of the levee and then sneaking away. Since almost every inch of deck space on the Sultana was covered with soldiers, it would be natural to assume that the stokers relaxed near, or even inside, the coal bins which were nearly empty.

In his own book, "Disaster on the Mississippi", Salecker says "a large number" got past the guards as they docked, and dozens more snuck past with the sugar hogsheads. When one of the casks spilled sugar "onto the Memphis wharf" the soldiers "descended on the spill like ants at a picnic. While the Sultana was at Memphis, a few civilian passengers left the boat and a few got on.

Salecker is quite correct. As he mentions several times in his narrative, the torpedo could not have been placed at the bottom of the empty bins. Furthermore, Rule, in her article and in her Website, speculates that J. Cass Mason, captain and part owner of the Sultana , probably knew Robert Louden from a couple of earlier encounters and from the fact that they were both residents of St.

Captain Mason, who was in financial straits, had everything riding on the successful completion of this trip. Yes, even if Mason and Louden did not personally know each other they certainly would have known of each other's reputations. Mason had been smuggling for the Confederates and changed sides.

He captained the boat that carried Louden's wife into forced exile. Louden would have had no fondness for Mason and many causes to wish him harm. Yet now we are to believe this man was efficient enough to check every face of the over two thousand on board for one man he didn't know he was looking for and may not have recognized if he did?

Louis to a number of other cities. He would have had a difficult time, at best, boarding the Sultana while she was docked at Memphis. And yet Louden wasn't caught, not at Memphis nor anywhere else, and he even had Allen Pinkerton after him. He was a professional and he had a strong support network in Memphis and the surrounding area.

There, she took on 1, bushels of coal. If Louden had been able to elude the guards, the steamboat officials, and the stokers, and had been able to place his coal torpedo in the empty coal bins, then it would have been covered by tons of fresh coal when the new coal was hauled on board.

If the coal torpedo had been covered by the new coal, then the torpedo would not have been shoveled into the fires of the Sultana until most of the new coal was gone, and the explosion of the Sultana would have occurred much further up river and much later than it actually did. We've already established the torpedo couldn't have been put at the bottom of the piles in empty bins.

But, if the deadly lump of coal had already been thrown into the furnace, it would not have been buried under the new coal. However, the Sultana remained at the coaling barges for nearly an hour, keeping up steam the entire time, which meant that her furnaces would have been constantly fed.

Since the Sultana did not explode while taking on coal, it is safe to say that no coal torpedo was shoveled into her furnaces while she was stopped. Yes, it is indeed extremely safe to say that! It was cast iron in the shape of coal, coated with coal dust.

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The inside was hollow and packed with ten pounds of explosives… Louden placed his torpedo in the coal bin, placing it where he knew it would be used in a few hours. Then he slipped away into the night. It is highly unlikely. On the contrary, it is highly probable that this is exactly what happened. Remember, this had been done before, many times. March Union Admiral David Porter said, "Amongst other devilish inventions is a torpedo resembling a lump of coal, to be placed in coal piles and amongst the coal put on board vessels. Louden had sneaked onto and off of numerous steamboats during the war years when he was a wanted man with a reward offered for his capture.

His trial in emphasized his use of disguises. Getting aboard the Sultana would not even have been the most difficult thing he did in his career. The coal barges were anchored about a mile above Memphis. The Mississippi River was at flood stage and the barges were surrounded by water. All without being seen or raising suspicion by the thousands of soldiers and civilians on board! And, since no eyewitness ever stated that they saw anything like this being done, it most definitely was not. Steamboats were refueled by the deckhands of each boat, under the direct supervision of the first mate.

They were not refueled by the proprietors of the coal barges. The proprietors sold the coal, the steamboat crews put the coal on the boat.

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The first mate of the Sultana , William Rowberry survived the disaster. He was interviewed by one of the committees investigating the disaster and never once mentioned a suspicious character at the coal barges, or at the wharfboat either. This smacks a bit of an "if a tree falls in the forest" argument. If no one saw him, it only means that no one saw him. Or in seeing him, saw nothing that aroused suspicion. Louden wasn't a bumbling fool, nor was he a novice at this. He knew steamboats extremely well and how they operated.

There were a considerable number of Confederate agents associated with Louden in and around Memphis. One of them, a man named Keaton 8 , owned a boat supply store near the wharf. Any help he needed to pull off the act, Louden would have had at his disposal. The number of successful steamboat destructions on the Mississippi, including the Memphis area, demonstrate most clearly bombs could and had been smuggled aboard steamboats.

Nothing about the Sultana exempts it from being as much at risk as the other 60 boats destroyed by sabotage. Are we to believe that after placing his torpedo on board the Sultana , Louden simply walked to the edge of the barge, dropped into a waiting rowboat, and rowed quietly away, all without being noticed? The proprietors of the coal barge, most of the crew of the Sultana , and even a few of the thousands of soldiers were still awake at this time, and yet not one single person ever reported such activity.

Because it never happened. If Louden had rowed over to the coal barges prior to the arrival of the Sultana the barge tenders would have remembered, and reported, such an act. The barge tenders helped save a number of drowning victims and went to work trying to collect the dead almost immediately after the disaster.

Most certainly the tenders would have reported the suspicious activities of Louden if he had rowed over to the barges and then stayed around to personally place his torpedo aboard the Sultana. A few days after the disaster, it was reported in the Memphis newspapers that a piece of a shell was found on the remains of the wreck. Since they did not, Louden never did row over to the coal barges.

Then, it took him several hours to row over flooded fields and up back rivers, being extremely careful to avoid the watchful eyes of the Union pickets camped along the river. Louden slipped away from the White Cloud without being seen, though a Federal detective was trying to keep track of him. Louden slipped away from the Ruth after planting an incendiary that destroyed the boat and killed twenty-six people.

Louden slipped away from a steamer in the Potomac River when he was spotted by Federal agents. Louden cut off his handcuffs under the eyes of a guard of twenty-one—a lieutenant, four non-commissioned officers, and sixteen privates—on the Hurricane deck of the City of Alton. He rolled up his sleeves, picked up a tray and, blending in with the boat's waiters, walked away from the guard. He then slipped over the side of the boat and swam away. Louden went through the blockade of Vicksburg twice. The second time Federal documentation he got away from the city two days after the Union had taken control of it.

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Several Union steamers were destroyed by sabotage at Vicksburg though they had General Grant, his army, and the Union gunboat fleet protecting them. These examples did not come from Louden. They came from his enemies, the ones who wanted to see him hang. Are we to believe that the Sultana was so specially and particularly guarded that it was "nearly impossible" for one man to slip away from it unseen in the night? It came near to taking the life of Rear Admiral David Porter who knew well the power of the Courtenay Torpedo and had issued reports on it. Louis and was involved in similar acts of sabotage against Union shipping interests.

However, Courtenay's gr-gr-grandson, Joseph Thatcher, who wrote a book on Thomas Courtenay and the Coal Torpedo, denies that a coal torpedo was used. Louden's claim is controversial, however, and most scholars support the official explanation. The location of the explosion, from the top rear of the boilers, far away from the fireboxes, tends to indicate that Louden's claim of sabotage was pure bravado. Two year before William Streeter's claim that Louden sabotaged the Sultana , there was a claim that 2nd Lt.

James Worthington Barrett, Co. B, 12th Kentucky Inf. Barrett was a veteran of the War with Mexico and had fought bravely with his regiment until captured at Franklin, TN. He was injured on the Sultana and was honorably discharged in May There is no reason for him to have blown up the boat, especially with himself on board. Then, in , another person came out with a report that the Sultana had been sabotaged by a Tennessee farmer who lived along the river and cut wood for passing steamboats. After a few Union gunboats filled up their bunkers but refused to pay, the farmer supposedly hollowed out a log, filled it with gunpowder and then left the lethal log on his woodpile.

As stated in the newspaper article, the log was mistakenly taken by the Sultana. Unfortunately for the story, the Sultana was a coal burning boat, not a wood burner. The episode of History Detectives , which aired on July 2, , reviewed the known evidence, thoroughly disputing the sabotage theory, and then focused on the question of why the steamboat was allowed to be crowded to several times its normal capacity before departure.

The report blamed quartermaster Hatch, an individual with a long history of corruption and incompetence, who was able to keep his job due to political connections: Hatch , an advisor and close friend of President Lincoln. Throughout the war, Reuben Hatch had shown incompetence as a quartermaster and competence as a thief, bilking the government out of thousands of dollars. Although brought up on courts-martial charges, Hatch managed to get letters of recommendation from such noted authorities as President Abraham Lincoln and General of the Army Ulysses S. After the disaster, Hatch refused three separate subpoenas to appear before Captain Speed's trial and give testimony.

Hatch died in , having escaped justice due to his numerous highly placed patrons—including two presidents. In December , the survivors living in the northern states of Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio began attending annual reunions, forming the National Sultana Survivors' Association. Eventually, the group settled on meeting in the Toledo , Ohio , area. Perhaps inspired by their Northern comrades, a Southern group of survivors, men from Kentucky and Tennessee began meeting in around Knoxville , Tennessee.

Both groups met as close to the April 27 anniversary date as possible, corresponded with each other, and shared the title National Sultana Survivors' Association. By the mids, only a handful of survivors were able to attend the reunions. In , only two men attended the Southern reunion.

The next year, only one man showed up. Eldridge of the 3rd Tennessee Cavalry, who died at his home at age 96 on September 8, , more than 76 years after the Sultana disaster. In , a local archaeological expedition, led by Memphis attorney Jerry O. Potter, uncovered what was believed to be the wreckage of Sultana. The Mississippi River has changed course several times since the disaster, leaving the wreck under dry land and far from today's river.

In , on the th anniversary of the disaster, an interim Sultana Disaster Museum was opened in Marion, Arkansas, the closest town to the buried remains of the steamboat [ citation needed ] , across the Mississippi River from Memphis. The museum is only temporary until enough funds can be raised to build a permanent museum to the greatest maritime disaster in American history. Featured in the museum are a few relics from the Sultana such as shaker plates from the boat's furnace, furnace bricks, a few pieces of wood, and some small metal pieces. The museum also features many artifacts from the Sultana Survivor's Association, as well as a foot model replica of the boat.

One entire wall is decorated with the names of every soldier, crewperson and passenger that was on the boat on April 27, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. For other uses, see Sultana disambiguation. Sultana at Helena, Arkansas on April 26, , a day before her destruction. A crowd of paroled prisoners covers her decks. Disaster on the Mississippi: Louis Daily Missouri Democrat, April 29, states that the "steamer Sultana left New Orleans on Friday evening the 21st, with about seventy cabin passengers, and about eighty five employees on the boat.

A Tragic Postscript to the Civil War". Archived from the original on Retrieved April 27, Retrieved 24 September

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