HISTORY DETECTIVES (#1, the Sinking of the SULTANA)

Thanks for posting your thoughts on this. I constantly am looking for that type of entertainment from cable. I saw the ads for this program. I'm psyched to watch it.

I'll follow along...

the next show is about downing of Glen Miller's plane.

I cant say anything about the Sultana because itd be a spoiler .

whats your local PBS station?

WEDU, Tampa (VHF Ch 3)

go to the station web site and see when theywill rebroadcast. Our Baltimore PBS does that nicely but the Philly PBS station has its head up it ass and assumes that people only want to watch stuff about Philly and Camden NJ. It a poorly run station (Its like the old GM company that NVER EVER listened to its customers)

May I aks, what did that program conclude about the death bed confession that a man sabotaged the boat? I don't see that he did, but I am no historian.

The overall conclusion (even though one historian , who was using an argument of sabotage, to load in her book), was that the overloading of the boat (only 300 people were supposed to be on, not 3000), the inclement weather and the overloading caused the boat to be unstable and top heavy. ALSO, the Memphis Quartermaster a "light colonel Hatch" (who had a really spotty history of taking bribes, being brought up on charges, and earlier removed from the position) was clearly loading up the SUltana because he had a "deal" with the SULTANAs captain to maximize his revenue (the boat capts were paid 10$ for each prisoner
carried home)
There were at least 3 other Union steamer boats who could have divvied up the passenger load but were dismissed without any passengers.
Colonel Hatch was interceded for by his brother, the Illinois Sec of State. His brother was tight with LINCOLN, who ordered Henry Halleck to dismiss any potential charges against Hatch (just before the sinking). AND Hatch was promoted to Full Colonel, based totally on patronage.
After the fire and sinking, Hatch ignored 2 subpoens and just kipped over any charges. The loss of life was about 2800 people and , compred to the total loss of life of the War, and the death of Lincoln, the entire matter was pretty much just a matter of record rather than any action or discipline.

The sabotage story had many fans but the "coal bomber" (forgot his name), was only brought up as a possibility by a newpaper reporter who did a "cold case" story 22 years after the incident.

Mot of the steam pilot and engineers and the Sultana memorial Committee, all are convinced that the boiler burst because of a steam explosion rather than a bomb. The forensics that supported that conclusion was mostly from the pattern of the boiler explosion. It occurred above decks and the ship burnt and floated along to the water line. Had it been a bomb (forensics said) the explosion would have blown both below decks and above decks and the ship would have sunk due to the hole blown into its hull.
They went over each of these items and how the "experts" arrived at each point.

Colonel Hatch was left holding the bag. Ill bet his descendants are real proud

Heres the typical Civil War (ill give you every silly detail so that you my be more confused than helped) account of the Sultana. Basically its the same thing but loaded with stuff that doesn't make the story more compelling jut seeming more detailed.

http://www.historynet.com/sultana-a-tragic-postscript-to-the-civil-war.htm

On reading that account, I found myself wondering if the boat's destruction made its way into any movies. I made a brief search, but didn't find any.

I did a Netflix archive search and nothing came up.

Unlike the Titanic, there were no 'back stories" earlier. Perhaps the story about Col Hatch and Abe Lincoln will make it worthwhile to generate a script.

(I hope the History Channel doesn't get involved, they have a habit of turning good stuff into something to do with "aliens").

Like a recent analysis of the development of Egyptian pyramids using scientific investigation n higher tech scanning techniques. Theres a "History Channel" assertion that EVERYTHING that appears advanced in the ancient world was because we got help from ALIENS.

The analysis of the pyramids learly show that humans "evolved" the engineering and construction skills over time and as a result of several errors and "baby steps" in their development.

The "step pyramid" , had,at its core, several layers of "MASTAPAs" which were early trapezoidal burial tombs that became the core of the step pyramid.
All this was made possible by an engineering look at some high resolution laser scans of the insides and outsides of the evolving pyramidal structure.
HAd this been done by the History Channel, they woulda had those crazy haired douche bags who claim that aliens were giving us this knowledge so we could proceed in our development as a people.

I feel so ... so ... alienated.

The History Channel should be history if they keep that up.