APRIL 27TH, 1865: Just a few earlier, the steamer General Lyon had caught fire off Cape Hatteras with around 550 dead, now this. The river steamer Sultana blew up in the Mississippi River above Memphis, Tennessee, killing some 1450 of its 2,000 passengers-- all but 50 of them former prisoners of war. She was en route to Cairo, Illinois, when a violent explosion ripped her apart and turned her into a sheet of flame..
The cause of the explosion was never determined, but one of the theories advanced was that a coal torpedo-- such as the one suspected of having destroyed the Army steamer Greyhound on 27 November 1864, had been slipped into the steamer's coal bin.
--Old B-Runner
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