Box 5
Folder 5. Treasure – Mississippi
Item 1. Newspaper Clippings
Transcribed Text (OCR)
GARY MANGIACOPA ARCHIVE ============================================================ Title: B5F5I1 Slug: b5f5i1 Categories: Lost Treasure Source: https://garymangiacopraarchive.com/b5f5i1 Pages: 1 scanned, 1 extracted OCR: Google Vision API (document_text_detection) Processed: 2026-06-06 ============================================================ N.Y.N.Y. Daily News July 3 1982 C 07 Think they've found Civil War wreck Washington (UPI)-Researchers believe they have found the remains of a Civil War steamer that sank in the Mississippi River, taking more than 1,500 survivors of the confederate Anderson ville prison camp to their deaths in the nation's largest marine disaster. The wreckage is almost certainly that of the Sultana, a steamer that sank over 117 years ago near Memphis, Tenn., while carrying more than 2,200 passengers, most of them Union soldiers just released from prisons, including the in- famous Andersonville camp, investigators said. The reported death toll was 1,528-five times that of the San Francisco earthquake and more than either the sinking of the Titanic or Lusitania. The remains of a paddle-wheeler were found in a farm field about a mile from the meandering river northwest of Mound City, Ark. The discover ers declined to identify the farmer in order to prevent his land from being overrun by sightseers. The discovery was announced by the National Underwater and Marine Agency, a private founda tion based in Washington that conducts naval research. Three of the Sultana's four boilers exploded April 27, 1865, during a voyage from Vicksburg, Miss., to Cairo, Ill., and the burning ship went straight to the bottom. The Mississippi's course has changed over the last century, and the wreckage, covered with silt, was found in a soybean field. Mark Twain once wrote of the Sultana "Some farmer will turn up her bones with his plow one day and no doubt be surprised History buff Jerry Potter, a Memphis lawyer. pinpointed the location using old maps and Civil War records. Both Clive Cussler, head of the marine agency, and Potter were careful in interviews not to say flatly that the wreckage is the Sultana. But there is little else it can be, they said.
