Soldiers from Company F of the 115th Ohio Volunteer Infantry died when the steamboat Sultana exploded seven miles north of Memphis on the Mississippi River on April 27, 1865. The Sultana reportedly carried more than 2,400 passengers, six times its capacity of 378. The vast majority were Union soldiers recently freed from Southern prisons at the end of the Civil War. Approximately 1,800 passengers and crew died in what is considered the worst maritime disaster in American history. Company F was organized in Stark, Columbiana, and Portage Counties and was mustered into service at Camp Massillon in the fall of 1862.