Recently, my nephew Phillip e-mailed to ask about an ancestor who had been involved in the infamous sinking of the Sultana steamship in 1865. I thought about writing something up for this site, but thought I’d instead link directly to a web page dedicated to memorializing the disaster. The sinking of the Sultana is considered the worst maritime disaster in US history; and with good reason. Nearly 1500 passengers, most Union prisoners recently paroled from utter depredation at southern prison camps such as Andersonville and Cahaba, were killed when the steamship exploded in the Mississippi River just north of Memphis. My great great grandfather, John H. Simpson (who was just 15 when he enlisted in the Union army and was later captured by Nathan Bedford Forrest's cavalry at Sulfur Trestle, Alabama) survived the incident and went on to become an instrumental figure in the formation of the Sultana Survivors’ Association (which still meets to this day in its present form as the Sultana Descendants’ Association). He was also responsible for the funding and dedication of a large stone memorial at the Mount Olive Baptist Church cemetery in South Knoxville. John was the second to the last surviving member of the association when he passed away in 1929.
Instead of writing more on this, I thought I’d simply include a poignant article from a local paper, written at the time of the final Survivors’ Association meeting. The following article was run in The Knoxville Journal on April 27th, 1930:
A stocky man, with white mustache and brown gray hair, his shoulders stooped with cares of eighty-four years, will go today from his home in Knoxville to the Rockford Presbyterian church, and there elect himself to all the offices of the Sultana Survivor’s Association.
Alone, he will attend what would have been a reunion had another of his comrades lived. There will be speeches-and he will make them, dinner, and he will eat it; he will call a business session, answer the roll, close the meeting and return to his home.
He is the last survivor of East Tennessee Federal soldiers who were saved when the Sultana sank near Memphis, with a death toll of 1328, on April 27, 1865. Sixty-five years ago today.
Pleasant Marion Keeble,…the lone survivor, will observe the memory of his comrades today and keep the pledge he made with them half a century ago.
Then, there were more than two hundred who met annually. Twenty years ago there were forty, ten years ago there were eleven. In 1928, four were living; at the reunion last year, there were two--now there is only one.
Instead of writing more on this, I thought I’d simply include a poignant article from a local paper, written at the time of the final Survivors’ Association meeting. The following article was run in The Knoxville Journal on April 27th, 1930:
A stocky man, with white mustache and brown gray hair, his shoulders stooped with cares of eighty-four years, will go today from his home in Knoxville to the Rockford Presbyterian church, and there elect himself to all the offices of the Sultana Survivor’s Association.
Alone, he will attend what would have been a reunion had another of his comrades lived. There will be speeches-and he will make them, dinner, and he will eat it; he will call a business session, answer the roll, close the meeting and return to his home.
He is the last survivor of East Tennessee Federal soldiers who were saved when the Sultana sank near Memphis, with a death toll of 1328, on April 27, 1865. Sixty-five years ago today.
Pleasant Marion Keeble,…the lone survivor, will observe the memory of his comrades today and keep the pledge he made with them half a century ago.
Then, there were more than two hundred who met annually. Twenty years ago there were forty, ten years ago there were eleven. In 1928, four were living; at the reunion last year, there were two--now there is only one.
[Pleasant Keeble passed away the following year].
