On April 27, 1865, the worst maritime disaster in United States history occurred when three of four boilers on the steamship Sultana exploded and the paddle wheeler imploded in debris, flames and bodies at 2 a.m. into the flooding Mississippi River near Memphis, Tennessee. Over 1,800 of its 2,427 passengers—most of them recently released Union POWs from Southern prison camps—including Andersonville—were killed either by the explosion, drowning, hypothermia or burns. Two hundred survivors d


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