Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 329) recognizing the anniversary of the tragic accident of the steamboat ship SS Sultana, as amended. Madam Speaker, I…
Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 329) recognizing the anniversary of the tragic accident of the steamboat ship SS Sultana, as amended.
Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on the resolution under consideration.
Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Madam Speaker, American history is a rich one when it comes to the Civil War. Unfortunately, not all events are known or remembered as they ought to be, and the tragic story of the Steamboat Sultana, lost April 27, 1865, is one of those events. Books can tell us the story today.
Retelling the story one night in 1994, author Jerry Potter, as an after-dinner speaker on a modern Mississippi riverboat, brought to life the events of his 1992 book, ``The Sultana Tragedy: America's Greatest Maritime Disaster.''
Each of the attendees, including me, at that very warm and comfortable banquet that night felt the horror as we realized survivors and bodies alike floated and bobbed down this very same Mississippi River on April 27, 1865, the same place that we were bobbing and having dinner that night. This is Potter's book.
Years later, other books have appeared. In 1996, ``Disaster on the Mississippi: The Sultana Explosion, April 27, 1865.'' In 2009, just in the last few months, ``Sultana: Surviving the Civil War Prison and the Worst Maritime Disaster in American History,'' by Alan Huffman. ``The Sultana Tragedy,'' Jerry Potter's book, is printed by the Pelican Press, ``Disaster on the Mississippi'' by the Naval Institute Press, and the most recent book, ``Sultana,'' by the Smithsonian Press.
Today, April 27, is another anniversary of these events. But why do most of us know more about the Titanic than the Sultana, even though more died in the Sultana? The end of a horrific war a few weeks before; the assassination of Lincoln, his death; a new President; April 26, the night before the Sultana sank, John Wilkes Booth was killed; a war- weary Nation trying to move on, tired of years of carnage. And one sad detail; most onboard the Sultana were not prominent like some of the folks on the Titanic. Most were enlisted Union soldiers recently released from the hells of POW camps. As Jerry Potter says, ``Who remembers the steerage passengers aboard the Titanic?'' I do want to point out there was one prominent American onboard the Sultana, U.S. Senate-elect from Arkansas, William D. Snow.
Now, there were certainly people on the east coast at that time that would say the same thing Jerry Potter said, ``Who remembers the steerage passengers aboard the Titanic?'' And so today we remind America and ourselves with this resolution, and today in Memphis, right now a ceremony of remembrance is taking place.
So what story needs to be told? What was the Sultana? This picture was the last picture of this boat, and for many of the people who we see onboard this ship right now, it was the last photograph that was ever taken of them before their death.
The Sultana was an 1863 paddle-wheeled steamboat, modern and tough, built to handle the Mississippi River at flood stage day or night. Contracted in April 1865 to haul sick, emaciated, weakened Union prisoners of war who had been in the prisoner of war camps at Andersonville and Cahawba. And to give you a sense of how weak and emaciated they were, many of these men had lost up to 100 pounds of weight. The pictures of them coming out of the camp were comparable to what we saw coming out of the death camps in Europe at the end of that war.
The boat was built to handle approximately 400 people; it was loaded with perhaps 2,500. There were allegations of bribery amongst the steamboat companies trying to get government businesses. There were allegations of poor-quality repair work done in Memphis. The whole issue of whether it was overcrowded or overloaded continues to be one that is discussed by historians, the difference being if something is overcrowded doesn't necessarily mean that the ship can't handle the weight. And that was certainly the case with the Steamboat Sultana; it could handle the weight.
The other side of that argument is, as you can tell from this picture, with all the folks on top, it became top heavy, and there is one school of thought that says because it was so top heavy, in fact, as the boat would careen back and forth in the flood stage of the Mississippi, it would have affected the shifting waters in the boilers that may have led to the boilers blowing.
At approximately 11 p.m. the night of April 26, it left Memphis. It went across the Mississippi River that at that point was about 4 miles wide at flood stage. It went to Hopefield, Arkansas, got a load of coal, pushed out into the river. And when it was about 7 miles north of Memphis in the river at 2 a.m., the boilers blew. It was described as this thunderous, thunderous noise that was heard for miles, and thus begins the horror. And, of course, there were no photographs, no on- site CNN news. What we see are depictions of drawings of people trying to put together the recollections of survivors about what it looked like. This is, by the way, the cover of the most recent book by Alan Huffman, and that's the drawing that's on the cover of his book.
But thus begins the horror: death and injury by explosion and crash, death and injury by scalding from the boilers, death and injury by fire that went on for hours, death and injury by drowning. These were weak, emaciated people who did not know how to swim or were too weak to swim even if they knew how to swim, in very cold waters coming from the north. This was April 27, springtime. The river was at flood stage, and those waters were cold waters coming from the north. Death and injury by hypothermia, death and injury weeks and months later by complications of infection and other medical challenges of those weakened by war who were unable to fight injury. The boat had one lifeboat and it had 76 cork life preservers.
There were probably about 1,800 dead. We will never know for sure. Most of the Union POWs were from Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee. There were many volunteers along the shore or on boats that participated in picking up survivors and bodies. One of those was John Fogleman and his sons, Dallas and Leroy, from Arkansas. They built a raft of two logs and rescued people, six and nine at a time, and then their home was turned into a temporary hospital. The Fogleman family is still very much in Arkansas and active in public affairs.
Investigations began immediately, but the survivors were never satisfied that their story was ever told.
Probably the best description of the summary of why we need to remember this comes from the Jerry Potter book. He says: ``To say that the explosion on board the Sultana was purely accidental or unpreventable does not take into account the irresponsible conduct and criminal negligence that characterized the actions of an entire chain of army command and the profit-making schemes of various civilians. The Sultana tragedy is much more than a record of a steamboat. The deeper record is one of greed and the lengths to which men will go to achieve personal gain, even if that gain means endangering the lives of others.'' And that's the end of the quote from Jerry Potter's book ``The Sultana Tragedy.''
March 4, 1931, a man named Pleasant Keeble died. He was the last known Sultana survivor. So now we no longer learn from the survivors. We learn from Civil War historians and maritime and military scholars. Today we remember a little bit and today we resolve ourselves a little. And the resolve part of our resolution today says the following:
``Resolved, that the House of Representatives, one, recognizes the 144-year anniversary of the tragic accident of the steamboat ship SS Sultana; two, honors the memory of the soldiers and passengers who lost their lives in this disaster; three, regrets the lack of military and civilian oversight that led to the explosion and tremendous loss of life; and, four, rededicates itself to honoring all our veterans and military families with the highest level of support in quality resources, equipment and services.''
This is one of those stories, Madam Speaker. It's a rich part of American history. Unfortunately, it is not as well-known as it could be. We have not learned the lessons from these events as well as we could. I commend this resolution to the Members of the House to vote on today and to vote for this resolution to help in remembering.
Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Madam Speaker, at this time I have no further requests for time, and I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
Madam Speaker, I appreciate the leadership of my colleague on this event.
These House resolutions, we know today that we're not passing a statute, we're not changing a law, we're not creating a memorial. What we are trying to do is call attention to what we believe is a very significant event in our Nation's history. And to the families and relatives of the folks who were lost or survived the sinking of the Sultana, to the day they died, they regretted that their country did not pay more attention to what happened. So there are lessons to be learned.
As we are doing this right now on the floor of the House, in Memphis there is an event going on recognizing this event. I want to call attention to my colleague, Congressman Steve Cohen, as a cosponsor of our resolution from Memphis.
So it is just another thing that we can do to say, hey, America, there is something to learn from our rich, rich history from an event that we all may not know enough about as we would like. And I commend the books that I mentioned to folks and to seek out opinions about what occurred on April 27, the anniversary today, in 1865 on the Mississippi River just north of Memphis.
Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
