On April 27, 1865, the Sultana, a 260-foot, wooden-hulled steamboat, exploded, burned, and sank on the Mississippi River near Memphis, Tennessee. Approximately 2,400 people were on board, six times the ship's legal limit. More than 1,700 lives were lost in the disaster. Most of the dead were Union soldiers on their way home from Confederate prison camps. Among the 357 Ohioans who perished were 101 men from Richland County.