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

"Lee Surrenders!" "President Murdered!" "Booth Killed!" screamed the headlines of American newspapers in April 1865, leaving little room for mention of a maritime disaster that to this day stands as America's worst. On April 27, 1865, the Sultana, a wooden-hulled steamboat carrying six times the legal capacity, exploded on the Mississippi River, killing more than 1,800 men. Here is the little-known story.

“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.

The worst maritime disaster in American history wasn’t the Titanic. It was the steamboat Sultana on the Mississippi River — and it was completely preventable. In 1865, the Civil War was winding down and the country was reeling from Lincoln’s assassination. Thousands of Union soldiers, released from Confederate prisoner-of-war camps, were to be transported home on the steamboat Sultana. With a profit to be made, the captain rushed repairs to the ship so the soldiers wouldn’t find transportation elsewhere. More than 2,000 passengers boarded in Vicksburg, Mississippi . . . on a boat with a capacity of 376. The journey was violently interrupted when the ship’s boilers exploded, plunging the Sultana into mayhem; passengers were bombarded with red-hot iron fragments, burned by scalding steam, and flung overboard into the churning Mississippi. Although rescue efforts were launched, the survival rate was dismal — more than 1,500 lives were lost. In a compelling, exhaustively researched account, renowned author Sally M. Walker joins the ranks of historians who have been asking the same question for 150 years: who (or what) was responsible for the Sultana’s disastrous fate?

The true story of one of the greatest tragedies in New York history On June 15, 1904, the steamship General Slocum was heading from Manhattan to Long Island Sound when a fire erupted in one of the storage rooms. Faced with an untrained crew, crumbling life jackets, and inaccessible lifeboats, hundreds of terrified passengers--few of which were experienced swimmers--fled into the water. By the time the captain found a safe shore for landing, more than 1000 people had perished. It was New York’s deadliest tragedy prior to September 11, 2001. The only book available on this compelling chapter in the city’s history, Ship Ablaze draws on firsthand accounts to examine why the death toll was so high, how the city responded, and why this event failed to achieve the infamy of the Titanic’s 1912 demise or the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. Masterfully capturing both the horror of the event and heroism of men, women, and children aboard the ship as the inferno spread, historian Edward T. O’Donnell brings to life a bygone community while honoring the victims of that forgotten day.

Sarah Sutton and the Elliott brothers, Gabe and Joseph, grew up together, and, as teenagers, the brothers vie for Sarah's attention. When the Civil War starts, Gabe and Joseph enlist in the Union army. Sarah accompanies her father, a surgeon, and serves as a nurse in battlefield hospitals. They reunite on the Sultana, a steamboat returning thousands of soldiers, many former prisoners of war, home. Tragedy strikes when the boilers explode and the ship sinks in the Mississippi River. What will happen next?

From The New York Times bestselling author of Prayers for Sale comes the moving and powerful story of a small town after a devastating avalanche, and the life changing effects it has on the people who live there Whiter Than Snow opens in 1920, on a spring afternoon in Swandyke, a small town near Colorado's Tenmile Range. Just moments after four o'clock, a large split of snow separates from Jubilee Mountain high above the tiny hamlet and hurtles down the rocky slope, enveloping everything in its path including nine young children who are walking home from school. But only four children survive. Whiter Than Snow takes you into the lives of each of these families: There's Lucy and Dolly Patch—two sisters, long estranged by a shocking betrayal. Joe Cobb, Swandyke's only black resident, whose love for his daughter Jane forces him to flee Alabama. There's Grace Foote, who hides secrets and scandal that belies her genteel façade. And Minder Evans, a civil war veteran who considers his cowardice his greatest sin. Finally, there's Essie Snowball, born Esther Schnable to conservative Jewish parents, but who now works as a prostitute and hides her child's parentage from all the world. Ultimately, each story serves as an allegory to the greater theme of the novel by echoing that fate, chance, and perhaps even divine providence, are all woven into the fabric of everyday life. And it's through each character's defining moment in his or her past that the reader understands how each child has become its parent's purpose for living. In the end, it's a novel of forgiveness, redemption, survival, faith and family.

Lee Surrenders! "President Murdered!" "Booth Killed!" screamed the headlines of American newspapers in April 1865, leaving little room for mention of a maritime disaster that to this day is America's worst. On April 27, 1865, the Sultana, a 260-foot, wooden-hulled steamboat-smaller than the Titanic but carrying more passengers-exploded on the Mississippi River near Memphis, Tennessee. More than 1,800 men, mostly Union soldiers on their way home from Confederate prison camps, died. On board were over 2,400 passengers-six times the ship's legal capacity. Although jubilant about the war's end, most of the men were weakened by malnutrition and disease from their imprisonment at Andersonville and Cahaba. Hundreds who were not killed in the explosion drowned in the cold, swift waters of the muddy river. Because of the timing of the sinking, coverage of the Sultana's demise was scant, and the tragedy has passed almost unnoticed in the pages of American history. In this highly documented book, author Jerry Potter focuses on how greed, indifference, gross stupidity, and criminal misconduct reaching as far as the White House led to the overloading of the Sultana at Vicksburg. Such irresponsible conduct characterized the actions of President Lincoln, an entire chain of army command, and several profit-hungry civilians. This authoritative work contains abundant photographs and illustrations, as well as the most complete list of the ship's passengers available.

The first English translation of two captivity plays by Cervantes, set in Algiers and Constantinople. Featuring a lively cast of corsairs, captives, and renegades, they offer important insights into early modern Spain's conception of the world of Islam.