Sultana: Surviving the Civil War, Prison, and the Worst Maritime Disaster in American History

by Alan Huffman

Book Overview

"One of the most riveting war stories I have ever read....Huffman's smooth, intimate prose ushers you through this nightmare as if you were living it yourself." --Sebastian Junger, author of The Perfect Storm The dramatic true story of the worst maritime disaster in U.S. history, Alan Huffman's Sultana brings to breathtaking life a tragic, long forgotten event in America's Civil War--the sinking of the steamship Sultana and the loss of 1,700 lives,...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0061470546
• ISBN13: 9780061470547
• Release Date: March 2009
• Publisher: Smithsonian
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 1.1" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

Great Book on Little Known Incident

Alan Huffman's book, Sultana, is an interesting and easy read on a little known major maritime disaster in American history. The Sultana was a steamship commissioned by the US Government to transport recently released Union soldiers from Confederate prison camps back home. Many of these passangers were weakend by their internment in the camps from disease and injuries. The Sultana was packed way beyond capacity and due to poor a repair on a boiler an explosion occurred.You can imagine the horror. Here you have these poor soldiers, excited to be released and on their way home, only to look death in the face again. If you like this book, you are sure to enjoy Huffman's other historical ventures.

Civil War panorama

Meticulous and insightful, journalist Huffman takes the reader on a vivid journey through the Civil War landscape. A large cast of characters provides slice-of-life experiences to give the reader a panorama of human experience during a tumultuous period. Artifacts of Sultana survivors are few, unlike the Titanic. A surviving diary belonging a soldier who did not survive the river disaster is haunting, as he records daily routines and then adds an occasional poetic flourish. A highly recommended, novelistic history lesson.

Exploring the mind of war

This story is so much more than an account of the worst martime disaster in American history. Anyone with an interest in Civil War history -- or war in general, or in simply how to survive the worst that can befall a person -- has asked this question: How can a mere boy march headlong into a withering enemy fire, knowing he is likely to die, yet keep going, on and on? This book by Alan Huffman finally helps answer that question by getting into the mind of soldiers who faced the absolute worst life could bring. And this story, though set 150 years ago, is applicable today as our soldiers plod through Iraq and Afghanistan, uncertain that they may ever see tomorrow. Huffman's detail of the perils faced -- from bullets to disease to shoddy equipment provided by unscrupulous war profitteers, has frightening similarities to current events. Yet it is his ability to allow the reader to "befriend", in a sense, the characters he follows from one human disaster to another that makes this story one to read and to share with others. As Huffman writes: "Survival is not an achievement. It is a process, and it is impossible to know, at any given moment, where you are in that process." As this book so perfectly understands, whether it be war or the devastating hardships of a distastrous economy, the human mind, body and soul are boundless in what they can withstand.

comprehensive research and quality writing make this a good read...not just for history buffs

This is a fascinating tale, well-researched and presented in a style that keeps the reader engaged. I'm normally a fiction reader, and generally shy away from Civil War history, but this is a great story, well told. I'd recommend this to anyone who enjoys a great story, fictional or otherwise...

A true story of survival, American Civil War and the Sultana Disaster

This is a story about survival and the many things that that means. It is all true, every moment , and it is mostly in the words of the people that lived it. YOU can walk in their shoes for awhile, you can have the shoes blown right off your feet. And you can live to remember. Imagine: You went to fight. You get injured in ways you can never recover from, Your body does not heal. You go to prison. You finally get released and think you are going home to finally get back to the life you remember or what you can still live of it based on your new limitations. And then the worst happens: the ship you are on to take you home - the boiler blows in the middle of the night and the ship catches on fire. You have two choices: Jump into water you know you can't live long in because it is so cold and because people are drowning each other OR burn alive. It is April 27, 1865 around 2 am... You will see varying accounts of the number of people on board but this is the worst maritime disaster in United States history, worse than the Titanic and yet you never heard of it. So consider these numbers: 2400 people on board a ship designed to hold 376. Only 700 survivors. This book will take you there through several individual stories and many diaries and first hand recollections. This book made me empathize my way through the war, prison and the disaster. Many voices, one story: individual but universal. Go there and see it, live it for a moment. Remember. Pass it on...