Over 40 of our members began 2023 with a wonderful Winter Meeting in February at St. John’s Episcopal Church Parish Hall. The speaker for the evening was Judge John Fogleman, a resident of Marion, Arkansas, who spoke on the history of the tragic event of the explosion of the Sultana in 1865. The Sultana was a Mississippi River steamboat under contract with the Union Army at the close of the Civil War to transport recently released Union prisoners of war North and to home. It was licensed to carry only 376 passengers and crew, but was overloaded with well over 2100 men, women and children. The history of why the boat was so overloaded and why it exploded is a many-faceted crime in itself.
The Sultana’s last stop was in Memphis on April 26, 1865. At about 2 a.m. the following morning, the boilers exploded when the steamboat was about 8 miles north of Memphis. Many of the passengers were killed or badly injured. Those that survived were saved by the doctors and nurses in Memphis who rushed to the riverfront as those who were either picked up by rescuers or floated their way to shore and made it to Memphis. A small museum was established in the city of Marion, Arkansas in 2015 to preserve what historical artifacts there were to help people remember this forgotten tragedy. Many members have been to this museum.
Judge Fogleman is the current president of the Sultana Historical Preservation Society, a non-profit organization, that he started and he is raising money to build and operate a permanent museum in Marion. The goal is $9 Million, which if raised, will be matched with another $1 Million from Federal Express. Judge Fogleman indicated that over $8 Million has been raised or pledged. Some members have donated and the Board of Directors has authorized a donation of $250.00 to aid in the project.
Judge Fogleman became so interested in the Descendants that he asked to become a member. The history of his family ancestors settling in Crittenden County, Arkansas in 1832 easily qualified him as a new member.
William Gotten, May 25, 2023