English: Sultana Historic Marker in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1862, less than a mile upriver from this marker, the John Lithoberry Shipyard in Cincinnati constructed the Sultana, a 260-foot, wooden steam transport. At the end of the Civil war, the U.S. government contracted the Sultana to transport recently freed Federal prisoners north from Confederate stockades. During the night of April 27, 1865, while carrying over 2,300 Union soldiers over six times its capacity of 276 passengers 0- a steam boiler abroad the Sultana exploded. The ship erupted in a massive fireball and sank in the cold, flood-swollen Mississippi River ten miles north of Memphis, Tennessee. Over 1700 individuals died - some 200 more than those lost aboard the Titanic in 1912 - in what remains the worst maritime disaster in American history. Of the total casualties, Ohio lost the most of any state, with 7901 dead. Indiana lost 491 persons, with Kentucky suffering 194 dead. It is estimated that of the Ohio casualties, over fifty were Cincinnatians.