{"product_id":"ss-sultana-gordon-j-mackenzie-9798184651712","title":"SS Sultana: Explosion, War, and America's Forgotten Maritime Disaster","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe worst maritime disaster in American history did not happen at sea. It happened on the Mississippi River, in the dark hours before dawn, when the overloaded steamboat SS Sultana exploded north of Memphis and turned a journey home into a river of fire.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn April 1865, the American Civil War had just ended. Abraham Lincoln had been assassinated. The nation was exhausted, grieving and distracted. Thousands of released Union prisoners of war, many weakened by months in Confederate prison camps such as Andersonville and Cahaba, were being sent home.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThey boarded Sultana believing the worst was behind them.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eInstead, a damaged boiler, a lucrative transport contract, military haste, overcrowding and institutional failure combined to create one of America's deadliest and most forgotten disasters.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSS Sultana: Explosion, War, and America's Forgotten Maritime Disaster tells the story of the ship, the river, the soldiers, the captain, the boilers, the explosion, the survivors, the failed inquiries and the silence that followed.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis book examines the central questions behind the tragedy: \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhy was Sultana so dangerously overloaded?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat role did money, haste and military bureaucracy play?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHow did the condition of the former prisoners make the disaster even deadlier?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhy did the inquiry fail to deliver proper justice?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhy did a disaster that may have killed more people than Titanic fade from national memory?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWritten in a direct, readable style, SS Sultana is a historical account of war, greed, negligence, survival and forgetting.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe men aboard Sultana had survived prison, hunger and war. They were almost home.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Gordon J. MacKenzie\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9798184651712\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Independently Published\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 06\/28\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 318\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.85lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.79d","brand":"Gordon J. MacKenzie","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":48997854085375,"sku":"9798184651712","price":18.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/ss-sultana-gordon-j-mackenzie-9798184651712","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}