Chronological History of the American Civil War

P a g e | 326

be mismanagement of water levels in the boiler. The Sultana’s four boilers were interconnected and mounted side-by-side, so that if the ship tipped sideways, water would tend to run out of the highest boiler. With the fires still going against the empty boiler, this created hot spots. When the ship tipped the other way, water rushing back into the empty boiler would hit the hot spots and flash instantly to steam, creating a sudden surge in pressure and an explosion. Being so top-heavy cause this to happen more severely. The exact death toll is unknown, although the most recent evidence indicates more than 1,700, almost 200 higher than the 1,512 deaths attributed to the USS Titanic disaster on the North Atlantic 47 years later. The official count by the United States Customs Service was 1,800. Final estimates of survivors are about 550. Many of the dead were interred at the Memphis National Cemetery. In 1888, a St. Louis resident named William Streetor claimed that his former business partner, Robert Louden, made a deathbed confession of having sabotaged Sultana by a coal torpedo. Louden, a former Confederate agent and saboteur who operated in and around St. Louis, had the opportunity and motive to attack it and may have had access to the means, but did not fit the type of explosion. A TV episode of History Detectives, which aired on July 2, 2014, that throughout the war, Reuben Hatch had shown incompetence as a quartermaster and competence as a thief, Hatch refused three separate subpoenas to appear before Captain Speed’s Trial and give testimony before dying in 1871, having escaped justice due to his numerous highly placed patrons--including two presidents. The episode can be seen here: http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/investigation/civil-war-sabotage/ What Really Happened to John Wilkes Booth? A few facts you might not know about the Great American Civil War. There were several theories about who plotted to kill President Lincoln? Some said Jefferson Davis had it done, others said Lincoln’s own cabinet or maybe his Vice President had assassins hired. Not too many Northerner’s like the idea of bringing the South back in with Constitutional rights, this would make them too powerful again too fast. Lincoln’s “Reconstruction” was still very questionable on how it was all going to work out. We are sure of one thing, John Wilkes Booth (pictured right below) pulled the trigger, April 14, 1864

and shot old Abe in the back of the neck at Ford’s Theater. But who was the man that was shot and killed in Garrett’s barn 12 nights later by the Yankees, that was said to be John Wilkes Booth? Was it Booth or another man James William Boyd (pictured left)? Not much is known of James William Boyd, born in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, but was living in Jackson, Tennessee with his wife named Caroline, and he was the father of seven children prior to the outbreak of war. He had served in the 6th Tennessee Infantry (CSA) and rose to the rank of captain. Boyd was captured in December 1864, and Caroline died

soon after. Boyd, while in prison turns to a “double agent” getting himself favors from guards. Even Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton (U.S.) signed off a petition authorizing his release from prison on February 14, 1865, enabling Boyd to return to Jackson, Tennessee and care for his children, but he never got there. One account said, he took a government job in Washington and it is from that point that he disappears from history. Was James William Boyd, the Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton’s (U.S.) choice as Lincoln’s assassin? Now that Lincoln is dead, the plot thickens as Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton (U.S.) and President Andrew Johnson both are under suspicion and want a quick closure for Booth and his conspirators. Secretary of War, Stanton had James Boyd make a map of safe places that Booth might use and now that Lincoln is already dead, Boyd decides to leave Washington for Maryland. At the home of