Reuben Hatch had a long history of fraud and underhanded dealings in his position as a quartermaster in the Union Army. In the Sultana's case, he is the one responsible for the serious overloading as he received $5 per enlisted man and $10 an officer for his cut with boats to send just-released prisoners home.
The Mississippi River was running high due to flooding and more steam was needed to move the Sultana upriver. In addition, with all those extra soldiers, it was quite top heavy. There is evidence that the Sultana's boiler was not in the best condition to begin with and the extra stress would easily have caused an explosion.
Thomas Courtney invented the coal torpedo, of which there are just four still in existence. As the name implied, coal torpedoes looked like a lump of coal and would be hidden in a ship's coal bunkers. Strokers would just shovel it into the boilers and then there would be an explosion.
There is no evidence that this was caused by a coal torpedo.
--Old B-R'er
No comments:
Post a Comment