{"product_id":"sinking-the-sultana-a-civil-war-story-of-imprisonment-greed-and-a-doomed-journey-home","title":"Sinking the Sultana: A Civil War Story of Imprisonment, Greed, and a Doomed Journey Home","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe worst maritime disaster in American history wasn’t the Titanic. It was the steamboat Sultana on the Mississippi River — and it could have been prevented.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn 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 boat 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 boat’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?\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51957896413464,"sku":"9780763677558","price":16.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0787\/8203\/8296\/files\/9780763677558.jpg?v=1776266557","url":"https:\/\/lushenabooksinc.com\/products\/sinking-the-sultana-a-civil-war-story-of-imprisonment-greed-and-a-doomed-journey-home","provider":"Lushena","version":"1.0","type":"link"}