The Steamer Sultana

Vicksburg is where the Sultana's fate was set. Thousands of Union men freed from Cahaba and Andersonville waited in a parole camp, and captains were paid $2.75 for each enlisted man carried north. The chief quartermaster, Reuben Hatch, reportedly offered Captain J. Cass Mason a load of prisoners in return for a kickback. A quick patch fixed a leaking boiler. The boat, built for 376 passengers, left on April 24, 1865 with about 2,100 aboard. Estimates of the dead run from 1,100 to 1,547. No one was held accountable.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Old Court House Museum — 0.3 mi
  Vicksburg's Greek Revival courthouse of 1860, raised on a hilltop with the labor of enslaved artisans and now a private local-history museum heavy on Confederate relics.
• Vicksburg National Military Park — 1.9 mi
  A 16-mile tour road through the trenches of the 47-day siege of 1863, with a national cemetery and the story of the thousands of enslaved people who reached freedom behind Union lines.
• USS Cairo Gunboat and Museum — 2.0 mi
  The raised hull of a Union river ironclad sunk by a mine in the Yazoo in 1862, displayed at Vicksburg National Military Park with the artifacts the river mud preserved.

More markers nearby

• C.S.S. Arkansas — steps away
• The Vicksburg & Queen of the West — steps away
• Firing on the A.O. Tyler — steps away
• Red Tops — steps away