I’m making a bunch of behind the scenes changes on the site here to hopefully make it easier to update. The main goal is to allow Sultana descendents and friends to easily add news on this blog here on their own.
In the meantime, I’ve slowly moved older news entries or relevance below.
Most notably, I just added information from Norman Shaw about this year’s reunion in Franklin, TN on April 25th and 26th.
Hello All:
This message is to provide a lodging update of rooms set aside for the Sultana Assoc. at the Franklin Quality Inn and Best Western.
As of yesterday, only two rooms were available out of the 30 reserved at Quality Inn. I was able to add to our block of rooms the last unrented, non smoking room that the motel had. Also, able to add 5 smoking rooms. In case you are a smoker and rented one of the non-smoking rooms, you might consider moving to a smoking room to free up the non-smoking room.
I wrote in the last newsletter that as backup I had reserved 10 rooms at the Best Western motel which is located immediately across Murfreesboro Pike from the Quality Inn. Nine of these rooms are still not booked. Today, I added 10 more rooms, half non-smoking, half smoking. Here, you will also find some variety in bed choices, i.e. one king sized bed in a room or two beds in one room. Any rooms not booked by April 1st at Best Western will not be held for us.
Please book a room as soon as you can since, as it happens, the weekend for our reunion falls on the same weekend as a large festival held every year in Franklin which fills up all of Franklin’s motels and hotels. However, do not fear even if you miss out on the rooms at the Quality Inn or Best Western or Franklin in general since there will probably be rooms to rent in nearby Columbia, Murfreesboro, or Nashville (20-30 minutes drive away).
For those who do not have the phones numbers, they are Quality Inn–615/794-7591
and Best Western–615/790-0570.
-Norman Shaw
I am pleased to announce the plans for our 21st Sultana Reunion in Franklin, TN. Since we try to choose sites each year related to the Sultana story, Franklin was a logical pick when considering the fact that scores of Sultana men were captured there out of three regiments who fought to throw back John Bell Hood’s Confederate attack on Nov. 30, 1864. One of those soldiers was Pam Newhouse’s ancestor, Adam Schneider of the 183rd Ohio.
Franklin is a great place to visit for those interested in CW battles. Although the core battlefield has been mainly built over, there are still enough sites to see to help one comprehend the fighting that took place there. We will be visiting the primary ones on our Saturday tour: Ft. Granger, Carter House and Museum, Carnton Plantation*, and Winstead Hill. Our two tour guides are extremely knowledgeable on the Battle of Franklin, Tom Cartwright from the Carter House, and Eric Jacobson who works at Carnton Plantation.
*(there is a discounted charge to visit the Carnton Plantation ($8.00 each) and Carter House ($6.00 each) during our Sat. tour. These fees will be paid at time of arrival and are not included as part of the $14.50 per person bus tour charge.)
We will continue with our line up of several short presentations on Friday evening. Our primary motel has a meeting room large enough to hold 100 people plus tables and chairs so be sure to bring your Sultana related items for display. In addition to talks by Tom and Eric, Robert Hicks, author of “The Widow of the South” hopes to attend. Also, our own Richard Troup has another informative topic to present.
A new plan is in place for lunch and dinner on Saturday. These meals will be furnished by the same restaurant, One Stop Cafe, on Columbia Pike, a couple of blocks from the Carter House. Their specialty is Southern cooking! Since the cafe is not usually open for lunch and dinner on Saturday, we will be the only customers at those times.
One additional feature this year is a tour on Friday morning of the two forts in Athens, AL, that we visited last year at our reunion there. Many Sultana men were captured here by Forrest in his fall, 1864 raid including nearly all the soldiers of the 3rd Tenn. Cavalry (U. S.) and 9th Indiana Cav. at Sulphur Springs Trestle. Several people contacted me last year to say they hated to miss the reunion since it would be so meaningful to visit the forts where their ancestor was captured. For that reason, I plan to have an Athens tour starting Friday morning at 9:00 (see related article). Of course, we will need to have at least a few persons signed up to make the tour worthwhile.
Please notify me as soon as you can if you plan to attend the Franklin reunion. The only cost to prepay is the bus tour at $14.50 per person. Full payment for our group must be made to the bus company by April 15th. When you register, please include your name and every name of a family member who is attending, your Sultana ancestor’s name (if any), your address, phone number(s) and an e-mail address if you have one. Send your sign up data, lunch choice (see below), and bus tour check to me, Norman Shaw, at P.O. Box 30372, Knoxville, TN, 37930. You can send an e-mail message to me at shawclan4@bellsouth.net.
RESERVATION DETAILS
Motel: Quality Inn at 1307 Murfreesboro Road, Exit 65 off I-65. Call 615/794-7591. Thirty rooms on first floor reserved at $59.99 plus tax. Mostly two queen sized beds but some single king sized beds available. Reserve room in your own name and pay on departure. Ask for the Sultana Association to get the discount rate. Continental breakfast. Recently renovated in November 2007.
Even if the 30 rooms get taken, you can still book a room at the discount rate if additional rooms in the motel are available.
Motel: Best Western at 1308 Murfreesboro Road, Exit 65 off I-65 (across road from Quality Inn). Call 615/790-0570. Ten rooms at $59.88 plus tax on first floor reserved as backup to Quality Inn. They do offer a single full sized bed at $49.88, if available. Also ask for Sultana Association to get the discount. Complete hot breakfast.
Tour Buses: Supplied by Cumberland Tours on Columbia Pike. Will have two 45 passenger coach buses. Start Sat. tour at Quality Inn at 8:00 a. m. and end no later than 3:00 p.m. Will have lunch at One Stop Cafe. Tour cost is $14.50 per person which must be prepaid to me!
One Stop Cafe: will cook and serve our lunch and dinner for Saturday.
The setup for the two Saturday meals is a little different this year, so read closely. My objective was to streamline the process while saving myself time by handling less money.
–The cost is $8.00 per person for lunch and $13.00 per person for the evening meal (cash or check, no credit cards!). The price includes a beverage and sales tax.
–Each individual will make payment to an appointed cafe staff member prior to being served his/her meal.
–You do not have to prepay for the two Saturday meals. But, you must let me know in advance by e-mail or regular mail which lunch plate (not dinner) you want.
Lunch–consists of choice of one of three sandwiches which comes with two side items. Also included are drinks (Coke products, iced tea, sweet and non sweet, and coffee), cornbread, and banana pudding. Pick one below and let me know:
a) BBQ sandwich with coleslaw and baked beans
b) Chicken salad sandwich with potato salad (or chips) and tomato basil salad
c) Tuna salad sandwich with potato salad (or chips) and tomato basil salad
Dinner–consists of choice of one of three entrees (either fried chicken, meat loaf, or country fried steak with gravy) and two out of four vegetables (mashed potatoes, green beans, mac & cheese, or fried okra). Meal also consists of cornlight bread, drinks (same as above) and one of two desserts, either peach cobbler or Mississippi mud cake.
You make these decisions as you move down the line cafeteria style.
Norman Shaw
Tom Koba, who for the past few years had been working on a documentary about the Sultana disaster, passed away Saturday in Norwalk, Ohio.
The Toledo Blade published a fine obituary this morning (click to read), that talks about his lifelong love of filmmaking, and passion for telling stories about the Ohio and the Civil War, producing at least 12 feature documentaries.
His longtime companion, Jennifer Wertz, who had accompanied him to some of the Sultana reunions, provided the Blade with his background:
Ms. Wertz said that at the time of his death, Mr. Koba was working on a
film about an 1865 disaster involving the Mississippi River steamboat
Sultana, whose boiler exploded during a northward voyage carrying 2,400
passengers, mostly freed Union war prisoners.
Mr. Koba swore several times that he would stop making films about the
Civil War, she said, “but then he’d see some memorial plaque and say,
‘That would be a great subject for a film.’ He was intrigued by stories
that had never been told before.”
Mr. Koba’s interest in film-making began during his late-1950s
childhood in Lorain, Ohio, where his parents encouraged his use of the
family home as a movie set. He and high-school friends produced a
feature-length movie about a World War II beachhead battle that
premiered at a Lorain cinema and made enough money to finance his next
project, Ms. Wertz said.
He became Ohio University’s first film student, graduating with a bachelor of fine arts degree in 1968, she said.
At a reunion a few years ago, Tom showed some his footage for the Sultana documentary, which included recreations of the tragedy for which he’d built a portion of the ship, brought in Civil War reenactors from three states, and even hired stuntmen to portray soldiers who’d jumped off the ship while on fire.
Behind the scenes photos from the shoot can be found at the website for North Coast Casting (click here to see).
The Blade reports that funeral services will be held Wednesday, 1pm at Toft Funeral Home in Sandusky.
The family requests “tributes” be made to wild animal rescue group Back to the Wild (donation info here).
Internet research has turned up two alleged Sultana artifacts that may still be in existance - one at a small Kentucky museum, the other in the hands of a private collection.
An article from the Dec. 7th edition of the Birmingham News tells of an elderly couple - both 82 - who have an amazing collection of unique antiques in their Alabama home:
The couple’s collections, housed in their sprawling white brick home on 2½ acres, include antique dresses, cars and dolls, and an eclectic assortment of just about everything else, including two theater seats from the old downtown Ritz Theater, a piece of copper wire from the USS Arizona, a 1912 brass cash register from a Sylacauga curb market, a metal Liberty Overalls sign found behind a wall at the old Liberty House factory on First Avenue North and a piece of boiler grate from the Sultana, a Mississippi river steamboat that exploded in 1865, killing some 1,700 Union troops.
If its real, wouldn’t this be not only a piece of the Sultana but possible evidence as to what really caused the boilers to explode? Maybe far fetched, but it does get the imagination going.
The second item could possibly part of the Behringer-Crawford Museum in Covington, Kentucky, which currently hosts an almost Ripley’s Believe It or Not type collection, although the museum’s broader concentration is on items of local historic interest.
An article from Wednesday’s Kentucky Post says the museum will close April 1st to undergo renovations in preperation for summer turnout, so you may want to head there sooner to check out, “the piece of wood that allegedly came from the Sultana, the steamship built in Cincinnati that exploded and sank in 1865, killing about 1,700 freed Union prisoners of war in the nation’s worst maritime disaster.”
If anyone is able to pay a visit to either museum and can take some photos of these possible relics, I’d love to share them on this blog!
Yesterday I attended a large gathering of reenactors in San Pedro, California known as Old Fort MacArthur Days. It was an amazing event, billed as the largest gathering of reenactors in Southern California (surprising considering the number of costumed extras that are used on film shoots). In addition to a large number of Civil War regiments, there were living historians from the Roman era all the way thru World Wars I and II.
The celebrity in attendance was R. Lee Ermey, possibly best known for his role as the Sargeant in “Full Metal Jacket”, but more recently as host of the History Channel’s “Mail Call”. (click here for his full list of film credits)
I introduced myself to him and immediately presented him with a Sultana Disaster coin. He and his producer indicated that they had heard of the Sultana, and then Mr. Ermey reached into his pocket and offered his own coin for trade (pictured - apparently Mr. Ermey is sponsored by handgun manufacturer Glock).
Bumping into celebrities is an everyday hazard of living in Los Angeles (I saw Al Pacino at my local Target a few weeks ago), but my encounter with former Marine R. Lee Ermey was a little intimidating - I think mostly because I was trying to represent the Sultana descendents, and knew I’d have to report the tale back here at this site.
(for my album of photos from Old Fort MacArthur Days click here)
Pam Newhouse told me recently that Rev. Chester Berry’s grave is missing headstone or other marker…
Chester Berry, 20th Michigan Infantry, captured at Cold Harbor (June 2 1864), interred in Andersonville Prison, survivor of the Sultana disaster, and author of “Loss of the Sultana and Reminiscences of Survivors” (1892), died in New Jersey on November 22, 1926 of a cerebral hemorrhage. He died at the Arthur Pitney Comfort Home in East Orange, NJ and was buried two days later in Glendale Cemetery in nearby Bloomfield, NJ. Although his burial plot is listed on cemetery records, there is no gravestone or marker of any kind. Surely something could and should be done about that. (He was living with his son Paul in Theodore, Alabama in 1924, so it looks as if he died alone in New Jersey. A mystery!)
- Pam Newhouse, gr gr granddaughter of Pvt. Adam Schneider, 183rd Ohio Infantry; died on the Sultana
Sultana documentarian Mike Marshall’s son Bradley recently created a searchable database of Sultana passengers that can be found at the River Rock Entertainment site. The database, that Bradley made as his final, capstone project before graduating, is searchable by first and last name, as well as unit and fate (lived or died).
The data was supplied by Jack Lundquist, who has been researching, updating, and correcting the Sultana rolls for years.
Check out the database by clicking here.
The blog Matt’s Today in History has an audio clip and entry about the Sultana.
Its a well written and spoken tribute to the soldiers who were part of the ordeal.
Did anyone else know that there was a large Sultana monument in Alliance, OH? Neither did I… and neither did veteran and history buff Jim Peters, who, up until he stumbled across the Alliance monument, had never even heard of the Sultana…
Peters didn’t learn of it until three years ago when he found a weather-beaten monument at Alliance City Cemetery. It’s engraved with the names of local men who died aboard the ship. The Alliance resident has been working since to make sure the names aren’t forgotten…
Peters first found the 12-foot-tall Sultana memorial while putting up memorial flags at the cemetery during Memorial Day. Years of wear has made the stone’s engraving nearly illegible, though Peters could read some of the words.
“Here’s the name Sultana, and I’m almost thinking Turkey and Constantinople,” Peters said. “I figured it was a ship because it also said ‘steamer,’ but I didn’t know much of anything about it … . I still don’t.”
Family concerns sidetracked Peters’ research for a while, and what information he has found tells him little about the memorial.
He doesn’t know who erected it or when. Its location on the Alliance cemetery plot map is listed as “GAR,” which stands for the Grand Army Republic, one of the first veteran organizations.
Peters hasn’t been able to identify the names engraved in stone, but knows that the men belonged to Company F of the 115th Ohio Voluntary Infantry, which included residents of Stark, Columbiana and Portage counties. He also found that the regiment was mustered in Massillon in the fall of 1862, and the soldiers likely were captured guarding railroads in Tennessee…
The article from the Canton Rep entitled, “Alliance man wants to restore monument to Sultana” also goes on to describe how Mr. Peters is working on the renovations and how he is seeking out local help. Their site also has a couple additional pictures.
I now need to update the monuments and memorials page which is currently lacking this amazing find.
photo from the Canton Rep