THE SULTANA DISASTER & PRESIDENT LINCOLN-76

On April 27, 1865 at 2:00 A.M. the SS Sultana blew up and, engulfed in flames, sank in the Mississippi River 7-9 miles from Memphis, TN. Of the 2427 passengers on board an official number of 1800 died, either from drowning or were burnt to death. This was the greatest maritime disaster in US history until Pearl Harbor. The Sultana was a paddlewheel steamboat 260 ft. long, a 42 ft. beam, and weighted 1719 tons. It had four decks and a stated capacity of 376 people. This essay is the story of that disaster as told on a recent episode of History Detectives on the PBS TV network. Unlike most people, being an American Civil War buff, I was completely familiar with the sinking of the Sultana. What I did not know previously was the connection to President Abraham Lincoln. The ship was grossly and dangerously overloaded, having taken on mostly just released Union Army prisoners-of-war at Vicksburg, MS, some of them from the infamous Confederate concentration camp at Andersonville, GA. Why it was so overloaded, blew up, and how President Lincoln figured into it follows: Just a day or two before this disaster, a boiler on the ship had developed a crack that was discovered. A proper fix would have taken three or four days. Because there was money to be made in transporting just released prisoners-of war back to their homes with a great deal of competition from other ships, the boiler mechanic was told to make a temporary fix in one day. The federal government was paying $5 for every enlisted man and $10 for every officer taken on board ship – big money in those days. The explosion and fire resulted from a defective boiler and the vastly overloading of the ship, especially on the upper deck, caused the ship to rock back and forth. This rocking would make the water in the boilers slash back and forth, alternately leaving the red hot iron sides of the boilers without water, then bathing the sides of the boilers with water thereby generating copious amounts of steam until the defective boiler failed, setting off a chain reaction of exploding broilers. As it turned out, there were two other ships that came into the harbor at Vicksburg hoping to transport Union prisoners. After the Sultana was greatly overloaded there were no prisoners left for them to transport. How did that happen and why? Enter Reuben Hatch the Chief Quartermaster for the US Government at Vicksburg. His assistant tried to tell him that the Sultana was dangerously overloaded and some of the prisoners should be loaded on other ships. Hatch did not listen to him. Hatch had a checkered past, not to say a dishonest one. In 1861 he was court marshaled for over-charging the federal government for supplies by keeping two sets of books – one with charges that he submitted to the government and one that he paid the contractors with while keeping the difference for himself. When he got wind of the impending court marshal he hurriedly threw the false set of books into the Mississippi River. Unfortunately for him these books washed up on shore and were largely still legible. So he was cashiered out of the army and sent to prison, right? Not quite. In fact not at all and this is where President Lincoln comes into the story. The older brother of Reuben Hatch was Ozias Hatch, the Illinois Secretary of State with many influential and powerful political friends in that state as well as in Washington D.C. and he was a close friend and financial campaign contributor to another Illinois politician, Abraham Lincoln. Before the court marshal could start, Ozias Hatch wrote a letter to Lincoln on behalf of his brother saying the charges against his brother were frivolous and without merit. He asked if Lincoln could do anything about it. The letter was also signed by Richard Yates, the Governor of Illinois, and Jesse Dubois, the Illinois State Auditor. Lincoln forwarded the letter to Henry Halleck, his general-in-chief at the time and the head of the court marshal. Halleck wanted the trial go forward, but Lincoln wrote an endorsement to the letter stating that he knew Reuben Hatch and there was nothing against his character. The court marshal was dropped. In 1863 Hatch went AWOL from the army for three months. When he returned he not only wanted his job back, but a promotion in rank as well! Can you believe that guy? The Chief Quartermaster General of the US Army, Montgomery Meigs, said no whereupon Ozias Hatch again writes to Lincoln asking that his brother get his promotion. Lincoln writes to his Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, to let Reuben Hatch off the hook for going AWOL and recommends that Hatch be promoted. He was promoted. Major General Ulysses Grant later promoted Reuben Hatch to Lieutenant Colonel in the Quartermaster Corp. At the start of the Civil War in early 1861, Ozias Hatch had recommended that Ulysses Grant, a graduate of West Point, but out of the army at that time, be appointed by the Governor of Illinois as a Colonel in the State Militia which he was. Two months before the Sultana disaster, Reuben Hatch was again brought before a military board on charges where it was stated in a preliminary report that of the 60 officers so charged, Hatch was one or two that could be compared in degree of deficiency. Once again Ozias Hatch interceded with Lincoln on behalf of his brother and Lincoln was happy to oblige. Not only was Reuben Hatch not charged, Lincoln even recommended that Reuben Hatch be promoted to full colonel two weeks before the Sultana disaster! Of course Lincoln had no idea that his actions would lead to such a tragedy. There were three commissions that looked into this disaster with the main one being headed by Illinois Republican Rep. Elihu Washbourne. Rueben Hatch ignored three subpoenas and did not testify before congress. He was never prosecuted and died in 1871 at age 53. Why was not more made of this disaster? The country was tired of war and all of the killing and maiming. Given that the death toll in the Civil War was an estimated 620,000 (more recently that figure is put by some historians at circa 750,000) 1800 more death was not something all that memorable, as callous as that seems now. And there was the business of the assassination of the then popular president of the United States. All of the reports and letters referred to above are part of the official records of the Civil War contained in the Federal Archives in Washington D.C. When shown copies of the archives documents concerning Lincoln and his relationship with the Hatch brothers, the prominent Civil War and Lincoln historian and author, Harold Holzer, opined that Lincoln was a consummate politician who used political appointments and political patronage to further his causes and was as effective with it as any politician. Holzer also said that if Lincoln had lived he would have had to answer for his involvement with the Sultana disaster. The big question is why did Lincoln exhibit such bad judgment in championing so dishonest and crooked a bureaucrat as Reuben Hatch? The answer lies in the politics of the day that is not that much different from now or previously. Like politicians then and now, Lincoln could be a political animal. We think of Lincoln today as this iconic president who could do no wrong. The perception then was quite different. Lincoln had many political enemies and the news media of the day, newspapers, even in the North, were sometimes brutal in their criticism and personal attacks upon him. Before the Republican presidential nominating convention in the summer of 1864 there were many influential Republicans who wanted to jettison Lincoln in favor of a less polarizing figure. Lincoln was looking for all of the political support he could get including from Illinois, hence his wanting to please Ozias Hatch and his political cronies. Even after Lincoln secured the Republican presidential nomination in 1864 and before Gen. Sherman captured the key Southern city of Atlanta, Gen. Sheridan denied the important agricultural Shenandoah Valley to the South and Adm. Farragut took Mobile Bay from the Confederates, Lincoln, a consummate vote counter, was convinced he was going to lose the election to his Democrat opponent, former Union Gen. George McClellan. The people in the North, not unlike now and during the Vietnam War, were war weary and saw no end to the conflict. After those important victories the end was in sight although more sacrifices were in store in the form of blood and treasure, but with the likelihood of ultimate victory and the end of hostilities. Many historians as well as other informed people (the uninformed don’t count), including me, believe that George Washington and Abraham Lincoln were our two greatest presidents. That is not to say that even they did not have faults, and sometimes glaring ones. Still, it is not fair or accurate to ascribe to them the flaws in the dream of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon where he saw a statue of gold, silver, brass, iron, and with feet of clay. When King George III of England heard that George Washington would voluntarily give up power after serving two four year terms as president of the United States he is reputed to have said that if he did he would be the greatest man alive. Washington set the standard limiting the presidency to two terms that was not violated until Franklin Roosevelt ran and was elected for a third and fourth term. The country was about to be engulfed in a great world war in the fall of 1940 so problematically he might be excused in his thinking that he was the best person to lead the country, however by the fall of 1944 it was clear that the Allies would win and Roosevelt was then suffering from serious heart disease. He should have quit at that point. Fortunately, (who says that congress does not do ANYTHING useful?) the XXII Amendment to the US Constitution enacted in 1951 limits the presidency to two elections and a maximum of 10 years for any individual. If Abraham Lincoln had been not so strong and resolute in his determination to keep the nation indivisible in the face of almost unimaginable adversity and seemingly intractable problems we would today be a series of “Balkanized” countries. As divided and divisive as we are today, and have been in the past, we are still one great nation. In general the US Presidency ages people (so far only men) with its great burdens and severe problems and as photographs show, Abraham Lincoln seemed to age physically at least 10 years in his four years as president. More than once he told people, to the effect, there was a tired spot in his psyche that he could not find rest for. He was under unrelenting pressure almost the entire time of his presidency. The killing, destruction, and the hatred of Northern and Southern Americans for each other were constantly palpable. Contrast that with WWII, as terrible as it was, where at least almost all the people were united in the defense of their one country. How lucky or providential we were as a nation to have a man such as Abraham Lincoln as its leader during those horrific times.