A Sultana Survivor Remembers the Disaster

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:05]Hey all, Ron here from Military Images Magazine with a new episode of Life on the Civil War Research Trail.

[00:00:13]On April 26th, 1865, on a wharf at Helena, Arkansas, photographer Thomas W. Banks captured the steamboat Sultana packed with about 2,130 souls.

[00:00:29]Almost 2,000 of them Union ex-prisoners of war, recently released from Andersonville, Georgia and Cahaba, Alabama.

[00:00:38]Built for a crew of about 100 and 376 passengers, the way overcrowded vessel would soon be at the center of a mass casualty event and one of the largest single disasters in the war [clears throat] when an explosion of its boilers resulted in the loss of about 1,200 passengers and crew during the early hours of April 27th.

[00:01:07]One of the survivors, Corporal Erastus Winters of the 50th Ohio Infantry, his life dates 1843 to 1925, had been captured at the Battle of Franklin and held at Cahaba Prison.

[00:01:24]He told his story in his memoirs, In the 50th Ohio Serving Uncle Sam.

[00:01:30]My friend and fellow historian Roy Blumenfeld shared the book with me and I'm grateful to Roy for making me aware of Winters' recollections.

[00:01:40]Winters' account of surviving the Sultana disaster, what it was like to be on board when the tragedy occurred, is a vivid first-person account and I want to share it with you.

[00:01:54]Winters writes, "We were a merry-hearted jolly set of men and boys as the Sultana was turned loose from the wharf at Vicksburg, swung out into midstream, and turned her prow toward the north with her living freight of human beings.

[00:02:11]Everything as far as we could see was running smoothly as the overloaded Sultana plowed her way slowly onward through the muddy waters of the Mississippi.

[00:02:21]At Helena, Arkansas, a photographer, by some good fortune, took a picture of the boat showing her overloaded condition while she was lying at the wharf, and a number of those photographs are yet in existence throughout the country.

[00:02:37]But very few of us thought or dreamed of danger, but whiled away the time gazing at the shifting scenes along the shore, playing little tricks on each other, singing little songs, telling little jokes, laughing and talking about the happy times we expected to have when we reached our homes and receiving the warm and welcome caresses of fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, wives, sweethearts, and friends.

[00:03:06]Reader, put yourself in our place, and then you may begin to realize what a happy lot we were.

[00:03:13]Such was the condition of the men and boys on board steamer Sultana when she steamed up to the wharf at Memphis, Tennessee in the evening of of April 26th, 1865.

[00:03:25]We lay here for some time while the boat hands were unloading a lot of sugar that had been stored in the hold. Some of the ex-prisoners helped unload the sugar. I believe they were paid by the hour for their work.

[00:03:39]By some means, one of the hogsheads of sugar was bursted, and a number of the men and boys had quite a picnic eating sugar and carrying off more for future use.

[00:03:52]Comrade Powder, one of his friends, was among the number. Besides bringing up all we wanted to eat at this time, he filled our ever-ready 3-quart bucket with the expectation of having it for future use.

[00:04:08]But alas, it was not so ordered.

[00:04:10]And as this is perhaps the last time I will have occasion to mention our good friend, we may as well take our leave of it here, for it went down in the wreck a few hours after being filled with sweetness.

[00:04:24]And its remains, for all that I know, are resting today on the slimy bottom of the Mississippi.

[00:04:31]Farewell, old friend. Your mission is ended. We shall always remember with pleasure the true and faithful service you rendered us in cruel Cahaba.

[00:04:41]And although you finally went down to a watery grave, and we missed you sorely, yet as we called to mind how you appeared to us as we fondly gazed on you for the last time, our thoughts of thee are very sweet.

[00:04:56]I now approach a period in these reminiscences that I fain would forget and pass by, but I believe I said back near the beginning of the book that I intended to tell all the snaps and snarls I got into, good or bad. So, if I would jump over what now happened, I would not be treating my readers fair, neither would I be fulfilling my agreement.

[00:05:18]So, that no matter how hard and disagreeable the task may be, I feel under obligations to make the attempt, though I know that after I've done the best I can do to describe the awful scene, that the half will not be told.

[00:05:32]We did not leave the wharf at Memphis until after midnight. So, it was the morning of April 27th when we left there and steamed across the river to a coal barge or barges, and we stopped to take on coal.

[00:05:48]All of us had sought some place of repose while we were stopping at Memphis, and every available foot of space was occupied by the men from the boiler deck to the hurricane roof. And after we had lain down, it was simply impossible for a person to walk over the boat anywhere without stepping on someone.

[00:06:08]Comrade Powder of Company K, Comrade John Fox, Corporal Company A, and Comrade M. L. Rice, Private Company A, and myself, all of the 50th Ohio bunked together and chose a spot just forward of the smokestacks on the cabin deck.

[00:06:26]From the best information I have been able to get, it was about 2:00 in the morning when the Sultana swung loose from the coal barges to resume her journey up the river.

[00:06:37]At that drowsy time in the early morning, it can be taken for granted that the majority of us were sleeping peacefully, dreaming of the old home and the joys awaiting us there.

[00:06:50]It was nearing the hour of 3:00, and the Sultana had reached a point some eight or 10 miles above Memphis at the head of the island called the Old Hen and Chickens.

[00:07:02]No danger was anticipated, and without any warning being given, all at once a terrific crash occurred. One of the boilers had given way with a noise those who chanced to be awake said resembled the discharge of a battery of artillery.

[00:07:19]The noise of the explosion, added to the slight scalds and burns I received, awoke me, and I uttered the exclamation, "Oh!" as I found myself slipping down an incline and landed on my feet on the coal pile in front of the furnaces.

[00:07:38]I knew something terrible had happened, but did not for a few minutes realize just what it was.

[00:07:45]The steam was so stifling I could scarcely breathe where I was, so I carefully treaded my way out onto the bow of the boat and soon learned what had happened.

[00:07:57]I saw nothing of the three comrades I'd been sleeping with. All was confusion.

[00:08:02]Pandemonium reigned supreme.

[00:08:05]Wounded men and men who were pinioned down with iron and timbers were screaming and begging for help. Men were crying, men were praying, and men were cursing and swearing. Men were walking about ringing their hands and crying out, "What shall I do?"

[00:08:22]Others stood as if dazed. Some of the men had been killed while they slept and never knew what happened. Others awoke to find themselves adrift in the chilly waters of the Mississippi.

[00:08:34]The boat took fire immediately and as it lit up the scene, I could see that the surrounding water was rapidly being filled up with a struggling mass of men that were now jumping overboard to escape the fast increasing flames.

[00:08:52]It was just at this time my attention was attracted to some men who were trying to launch a large stage plank and also to the voice of someone who was saying, "You men that can't swim better follow this plank."

[00:09:08]That appealed to me for I knew no more about swimming than a year-old child.

[00:09:13]So, I took hold and helped shove the plank overboard and jumped after it.

[00:09:18]The plank shot down under the water but soon came to the surface and righted itself with just as many men on it and around it as it was possible to get near it.

[00:09:30]I was one of the number that thought the only place of safety for me was on top of that plank.

[00:09:37]We only drifted a short distance till the plank was turned completely over.

[00:09:42]I was not looking for anything of that kind to happen and taken off my guard, I lost my hold on the plank and sunk beneath the waters.

[00:09:52]And now, once more in my life, I had reached a point where my boasted courage and nerve forsook me.

[00:09:59]I knew I could not swim and thinking I would never reach that plank again, all thoughts of being saved left me and for a few brief moments while I was under the water, I lost hope and the thought flashed through my mind that this was the end and that the time had come when I must yield up my life.

[00:10:20]But what is this that my head has come in contact with? I reach out my hand and grasp it.

[00:10:26]Thank God, it's that blessed old stage plank.

[00:10:31]My courage revives. Hope once more fills my breast. I place my trust in my heavenly father and by his mercy and through his power, I will yet reach a place of safety.

[00:10:43]I struggle on. I lose hope no more.

[00:10:46]I become more rational and act with more deliberation. I beg my comrades to be more quiet and though the plank was turned over a number of times, I always managed to retain my hold on it.

[00:11:00]But every time it would turn over, a number would be washed off who would never reach it again.

[00:11:06]Another comrade, whom I think from what I have learned since, must be comrade Henry Gamble of Company B, 14th Kentucky Infantry, was on the plank and acted very cool.

[00:11:18]He and I helped another comrade on the plank two or three times, but I think the poor fellow was finally washed off and lost.

[00:11:26]We drifted on out of the mass of men around the wreck until we reached dead water and by this time, there was only about six of us left on the plank and perhaps not more than four or five.

[00:11:39]The river was very high and all the lowlands were underwater at the time.

[00:11:43]I got hold of a piece of weatherboard that was floating and standing upon the plank began to paddle toward a massive driftwood that was stationary that I could see a short distance in front of us. For now, the first streaks of daylight began to show in the east and we could see our surroundings.

[00:12:02]The stern end of our plank, I may call it, caught on a young cottonwood bush and we could have remained there and have been rescued, but I was not satisfied to stay there.

[00:12:14]I saw a pole or dead sapling floating in the water that I managed to get hold of.

[00:12:21]It was about 15 ft in length and had a crooked root on it.

[00:12:25]Taking this in my hands, I walked forward to the bow of the plank as close as I dared and reached for that drift pile and by good fortune my pole would reach it. And making my pole fast by hooking it over some of the trash, I pulled the plank loose from the bush and brought it up to the drift pile onto which I stepped and felt I was saved.

[00:12:51]And so he was.

[00:12:53]And so you have the story of Erastus Winters, a Buckeye, from the 50th Ohio Infantry and the story of how he survived the Sultana disaster.

[00:13:06]Thanks for listening. We'll see you on the next episode of Life on the Civil War Research Trail.