| Sources |
- [S9] Smoky Mountain Historical Society Newsletter, Smoky Mountain Historical Society, Vol. XXVIII, No. 1, page 17, Spring 2002.
Escaped Sultana sinking.
- [S106] The Mountain Press, 31 Oct 2011.
Upland Chronicles: SS Sultana disaster affects Rule brothers
by CARROLL McMAHAN
Rev. Caleb Rule, who survived the SS Sultana disaster.
An image of the SS Sultana after the explosion on April 27, 1865.
Monument honoring the memory of the SS Sultana victims in Mt. Olive Cemetery, Knoxville.
In the early morning hours of April 27, 1865, 24-year-old Caleb Rule and his 20-year-old brother, John, were returning home to Sevier County after surviving a year and nine months of the most horrible conditions imaginable. However, the worst was yet to come.
The Rule brothers were traveling aboard the ill-fated SS Sultana.
Caleb and John Rule enlisted on July 25, 1863, and served together in the Union Army, Third Tennessee Cavalry, Company K. They were engaged in battles at numerous locations such as Cumberland Gap, Stones River, Okolona (Mississippi), Chickamauga, Decatur and Athens (Alabama).
Caleb, who served as Ferrier and Cpl. John Rule, were among those captured on Sept. 25, 1864, at Sulphur Trestle near Athens, Ala., by Confederate forces under the command of Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest and marched to a notorious prison camp in Cahaba, not far from Selma.
R.H. Whitfield, the prison surgeon, reported unhygienic conditions at the camp, citing the lack of a sanitary water supply. The warehouse building had one fireplace and only 432 bunk spaces. By March 1865, the population had grown to more than 3,000 prisoners of war. At least 142 men died at Cahaba Prison.
When regional commander, Lt. Col. Samuel Jones negotiated an exchange of Union prisoners from Cahaba Prison for captured Confederates, the prison was evacuated in March 1865. The actual exchange took place in April at Vicksburg, Miss.
The SS Sultana was a Mississippi River steamboat paddlewheeler whose destruction in an explosion on April 27, 1865, was the greatest maritime disaster in the history of the United States. An estimated 1,800 of the Sultana’s 2,400 passengers were killed when three of the ship’s four boilers exploded and the ship sank in the icy, swollen waters of the Mississippi River, eight miles north of Memphis.
The wooden steamship was constructed in 1863 by John Litherbury Shipyard in Cincinnati and intended for lower Mississippi cotton trade. The ship normally carried a crew of 85. The steamship was frequently commissioned by the War Department to carry troops.
The Sultana left New Orleans on April 21, 1865, with around 100 cabin passengers, deck passengers and numerous head of livestock bound for market in St. Louis, Mo. At Vicksburg, the steamship stopped for a series of hasty repairs to the boilers and to take on more passengers.
Rather than have a bad boiler replaced, a small patch repair was made to reinforce a leaking area. A section of bulged boiler plate was removed, and a patch of lesser thickness than the parent plate was riveted in its place. The repair took only one day, whereas a complete replacement of the boiler would have taken about three days.
During the Sultana’s time at port, men tried to muscle, bribe and threaten their way on board, until the ship was bursting at the seams with soldiers. More than 2,000 men crowded on board. Most of the new passengers were Union soldiers just released from prison camps such as Andersonville and Cahaba.
The U.S. government had contracted with the Sultana to transport these former prisoners of war back to their homes. With a legal capacity of 376, the Sultana was severely overcrowded. Many of the passengers had been weakened by their incarceration and associated illnesses. Passengers were packed into every available berth, and the overflow was so severe that the decks were completely packed.
Among the passengers were the two homesick brothers from Sevier County, Caleb and John Rule, who were trying desperately to get back home to see their family.
The boilers gave way when the steamer was about eight miles out of Memphis at 2 a.m. The enormous explosion flung some of the passengers on the deck into the water, and destroyed a large section of the ship. Hot coals scattered from the explosion soon turned the remaining structure into an inferno, the glare of which was visible as far away as Memphis.
In a letter to the editor of Brownlow’s Knoxville Whig published on May 17, 1865, Will A. McTeer, Adjutant 3rd Tennessee Cavalry, wrote: “I have seen comrades bleeding and dying, struggling with death in almost every imaginable horrible form, but never in my thirty-five months in service have I seen or heard anything that affected me so much as the news of this disaster, taking the lives of so many gallant men with whom I have been almost a constant companion since I have been a soldier.”
Cpl. John Rule, who reputedly could not swim, perished that spring morning in the icy waters of the Mississippi. His body was never recovered.
Caleb was an excellent swimmer, which helped him survive. He grabbed a plank and, with his aquatics skills, stayed afloat for many hours. He was subsequently rescued from the muddy waters and taken to a hospital in Memphis where he recuperated.
After his discharge, Caleb returned to Sevier County. He reached home in time to celebrate his 25th birthday on July 2, 1865.
By Christmas, Caleb had sufficiently recovered enough to take on the responsibilities of marriage. On Dec. 28, 1865, he married 21-year-old Eliza Louise Pierce.
Eliza and Caleb raised seven sons, Frank, Marion, William, Andrew, John, Oliver and Harvey; and four daughters, Zora (Jenkins), Nancy (Tarwater), Margaret (Froneberger) and Myrtle (Baker).
Eliza Pierce Rule died in 1893. At the time of Eliza’s death, their youngest daughter was only 8 years old. On Nov. 5, 1894, Caleb married Martha L. Blalock who lived with him, the rest of his life.
Rev. Caleb Rule was a farmer, postmaster of Gist’s Creek Post Office and a Baptist minister. After adhering to the divine call to preach the word of God, he served as pastor of several churches in Sevier and Blount Counties. The 72-year-old veteran died on Jan. 7, 1913, and was laid to rest in the Pleasant Hill Cemetery.
Caleb Rule did not live long enough to witness the unveiling of an impressive marble monument honoring the memory of the men who were on the Sultana from Tennessee, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Virginia and Missouri. The memorial, which was donated by Gray Eagle Marble Company and carved by Joseph Henry Troutt, was dedicated on July 4, 1916, and is located in south Knoxville at Mount Olive Cemetery on Maryville Pike.
Only four survivors of the explosion were present for the dedication.
— Carroll McMahan is the special projects facilitator for the Sevierville Chamber of Commerce. The Upland Chronicles series celebrates the heritage and past of Sevier County. If you have suggestions for future topics, would like to submit a column or have comments; please contact Carroll McMahan at 453-6411 or email to cmcmahan@scoc.org; or Ron Rader at 604-9161 or email to ron@ronraderproperties.com.
- [S34] In the Shadow of the Smokies, Smoky Mountain Historical Society, (1993), 618.
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