The steamboat Sultana was a Mississippi River paddle-wheeler destroyed when one of its boilers exploded near Memphis, Tennessee. The greatest maritime disaster in US history, an estimated 1,800 of its 2,400 passengers, many of whom were Union soldiers who had just been released from Confederate prison camps, were killed when it sank. Bodies of the victims continued to be found downriver for months, yet the disaster received somewhat diminished attention since it occurred soon after what? Discuss
Source: The Free Dictionary