In the early morning hours of April 27, 1865, Sultana, a 260‐foot wooden‐hulled steamer, exploded on the Mississippi River near Memphis. This steamer had the legal capacity to carry 376 passengers, but Sultana was carrying more than 2,400! Tragically, the majority of passengers were Union soldiers who had been recently released from Confederate prison camps and were returning to their Midwestern homes.
The explosion happened so swiftly that many victims literally dove through flames into the Mississippi to avoid certain death. Some estimates place the total loss of life at 1,800, almost 300 more than in the much more well‐known Titanic disaster 47 years later. One survivor recounted that:
such screams I never heard – twenty or thirty men jumping off at a time – many lighting on those already in the water – until the river became black with men, their heads bobbing up like corks, and then many disappearing never to appear again. We threw over everything that would float that we could get hold of, for their assistance; and then I, with several others, began tearing the sheeting off the sides of the cabin, and throwing it over.
The disaster was made worse by several factors. First, Sultana was badly overloaded. There was just one lifeboat on the vessel and after the lifeboat was tossed into the river, one hundred or more men struggled to hold on or to get inside. Under the weight of so many men, the lifeboat sank into the river. At the board of inquiry, the pilot said that Sultana was “fully supplied with life preservers. A total of 76.” In addition, according to witnesses at the inquiry, Sultana’s boiler was damaged and needed more repairs than what it received at Vicksburg. R.G. Taylor, who repaired the boiler at Vicksburg, said that the captain was in a hurry to get Sultana back on the river and did not want to take the time to make the necessary repairs. This needless tragedy—which still stands as the worst marine disaster in American history—made it only too clear that more oversight was critical.
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The Act of 1871 establishing the Steamboat Inspection Service
The Act of February 28, 1871 (16 Stat. 458) addressed some of the limitations of the Steamboat Act by firmly establishing the Steamboat Inspection Service with a central office in Washington dedicated to navigational safety. Under the Treasury Secretary, a Supervisory Inspector General would now manage all nine inspectors in each district. The act provided inspectors with broader authorities, such as authority to:
• regulate all steam‐powered vessels (excluding public vessels)
• protect passengers and crews
• require licenses for all masters, and chief mates; to revoke licenses
• prescribe nautical Rules of the Road.
Further, in June of 1872, shipping commissioners were placed at specific ports. On July 5, 1884, the Bureau of Navigation was created within the Treasury Department. The new agency enforced laws connected with the construction, operation, equipment, inspection, safety, and documentation of merchant ships. Moreover, the Bureau investigated marine accidents, collected taxes and navigation fees, and examined, certified, and licensed merchant seamen. The Act of February 14, 1903 (32 Stat. 825) created the Department of Commerce and Labor, and the Steamboat Inspection Service was transferred from the Treasury Department to this new department.
The Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation
The Act of May 27, 1936, reorganized and renamed the Bureau of Navigation and Steamboat Inspection as the Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation (BMIN). The Bureau remained within the Commerce Department. It continued to enforce the laws and regulations of its predecessor agency; however, the 1936 Act authorized the creation of a marine casualty investigation board and prescribed rules and regulations to investigate marine casualties.
As a result of World War II, a final shift occurred, when President Franklin Roosevelt transferred the Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation to the Coast Guard. Under Roosevelt’s reorganization plan, the transfer outlasted the wartime emergency, and the bureau never returned to the Commerce Department. In 1946 the shift was made permanent.
With that shift, all the responsibilities for maritime safety were centralized into the U.S. Coast Guard. A new strategy emerged for studying and implementing new safety measures for navigation and protecting lives and property. The service took the lead as the central federal agency responsible for the safety of life and property both at sea and on the navigable waters of the United States.
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