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

I bought this to learn more about the Sultana tragedy but the ship was not mentioned until page 169 and the first mention of the tragedy was on page 191. Most of the first part of the book talks about random information of soldiers from Union states who join the army and eventually end up in Confederate prison camps. With two-thirds of the book being about surviving the Civil War (with weak details) and prison life, the book should have Sultana removed from the main title or change it to "Surviving the Civil War, Prison, and the Worst Maritime Disaster in American History (the Sultana)". Incredibly disappointing read.

This book was well written and easy to understand. It touched on the Civil War, soldiers and the Sultana. It is very inspiring and I too diced me to a slice of the Civil War that I was unfamiliar with.

Huffman's book on the tragic events leading up to and including the explosion of the Str. SULTANA is a thorough, but different take on the history of this terrible disaster. He follows two men from Jefferson County, Indiana through their experiences, first as POWs, then as rescued from the Mississippi River after the SULTANA'S explosion and burning, then as soldiers returning home as shattered by those events. If you are a Civil War history buff, this one segment of that awful four years you should read.

Nonfiction. I have read almost every book on the Sultana on Amazon in preparation for my own novel. This book is a lot more than the story of the Sultana. It follows a number of soldiers through their experiences of the war and prison camp through the Sultana tragedy and after. It is expertly resached and written. Probably the single best of the books.

I am more than halfway through this book and although interesting, there will only be a few chapters associated with the Sultana. Book should be titled Journey to Sultana. I ordered a new hardcover and received the book with some written comments on the page margins.

Parts of this book are gripping, mainly the part which actually deals with the disaster which takes a while to get to. Tracking specific individuals a novel idea and some background on their overall condition and what they brought with them to the decks of that doomed boat helped but it took a long time to get there. I would have liked at least a map showing where they were and the route of their travels. Better still, some illustrations! The Civil War produced a wealth of information which the author obviously had access to. Descriptions of photos and artifacts presented the reader with some frustration. I wanted to turn to the pages with photos of those poor unfortunates or see the surviving diary but only had the author's description of them.. .

A story of horror and suffering unparalleled. I could not believe what I was reading and the fact that I had never learned about the Sultana before picking up this book. A great one.

A detailed retelling of the disaster starting with the Union soldiers who were captured in the southern battle grounds, then taken to the horrible prisoner of war camps of Andersonville and Cahaba. Then finally when they are paroled and anxious to go home, the army overstuffs 2000 of them on the Sultana, a riverboat with sloppily patched boiler. The rest of the tragedy unfolds from the words of the survivors.