Excerpt from Loss of the Sultana and Reminiscences of Survivors: History of a Disaster Where Over One Thousand Five Hundred Human Beings Were Lost, Most of Them Being Exchanged Prisoners of War on Their Way Home After Privation and Suffering From One to Twenty-Three Months in Cahaba and Andersonville Prisons Among the passengers on board were twelve ladies, most of them belonging to the Christian commission, an association akin to that of the sanitary commission of the Army of the Potomac. One of these ladies, with more than ordinary courage, when the flames at last drove all the men from the boat, seeing them fighting like demons in the water in the mad endeavor to save their lives, actually destroying each other and themselves by their wild actions, talked to them, urg ing them to be men, and finally succeeded in getting them quieted down, clinging to the ropes and chains that hung over the bow of the boat. The flames now began to lap around her with their fiery tongues. The men pleaded and urged her to jump into the water and thus save herself, but she refused, saying I might lose my presence of mind and be the means of the death of some of you. And so, rather than run the risk of becoming the cause of the death of a single person, she folded her arms quietly over her bosom and burned, a voluntary martyr to the men she had so lately quieted. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

“One of the most riveting war stories I have ever read….Huffman’s smooth, intimate prose ushers you through this nightmare as if you were living it yourself.” —Sebastian Junger, author of The Perfect Storm The dramatic true story of the worst maritime disaster in U.S. history, Alan Huffman’s Sultana brings to breathtaking life a tragic, long forgotten event in America’s Civil War—the sinking of the steamship Sultana and the loss of 1,700 lives, mostly Union soldiers returning home from Confederate prison camps. A gripping account that reads like a nonfiction Cold Mountain, Sultana is powerful, moving, rich in irony and fascinating historical detail—a story no history aficionado or Civil War buff will want to miss.

Reprint. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, A1996.

Tells the dramatic story of the infamous Confederate prisoner-of-war camp where 5,000 Union soldiers were interned during the latter part of the Civil War and of the ensuing maritime disaster With a death rate of 5 percent, Alabama's Cahaba Federal Prison boasted a better survival rate than the notorious Confederate prisoner-of-war camps of Andersonville, Libby Prison, Elmira, Rock Island, Johnson's Island, and Camp Douglas. Yet it was a ghastly facility, a hastily converted agricultural warehouse so overcrowded that each man barely had space to lie down to sleep. At the war's conclusion in 1865, however, in a harrowing reversal of the inmates' fates, captured Union soldiers were sent on a grueling overland march to the Mississippi River. Held there in camps at Vicksburg along with other prisoners of war, the soldiers embarked on the steamship Sultana for transportation north. Traveling first to New Orleans and then heading north, the vessel held by some estimates six times more passengers than its safe limit, many of them ill, injured, or malnourished. The flow of the swollen Mississippi that April was wide, swift, and cold, and the Sultana struggled to make the journey. Then, on April 27, 1865, seven miles north of Memphis, a series of three boilers exploded within seconds of one another. The lucky passengers were flung into the water as chunks of the Sultana blasted apart. The remaining wooden structure caught fire and the upper deck collapsed. Only an estimated one third of the passengers survived, hundreds of whom later died from their wounds. First published in 1988, Bryant's account weaves together the many strands of the Cahaba story. Combining masterful storytelling and insightful analysis, he describes Civil War prisons, the history of the Cahaba Federal Prison and its construction, as well as the prison's commanders, prisoners, and local women who provided medical care and food to the prisoners. He tells of the violent struggles among Union inmates, a mutiny and flood that occurred during the final days of the camp, and the harrowing deaths of the liberated soldiers aboard the Sultana. Bryant's Cahaba Prison and the Sultana Disaster remains a vital part of any library of Civil War history.