175 x 50 x 6; 512 tons. Casemate 150' x 50' - 21/4\" plating. Torpedoed Yazoo River 1863. Sides 8' high - single wheel. 9 miles per hour. 13 guns mostly 6\" rifles.
The Wild Wagoner, a handsome sidewheeler, of the Civil War period was built in 1864 at the Knox boat yard of West Marietta, Ohio for the Cincinnati and Wheeling trade. She cost $155,000, a lot of money in those days and had a capacity of 700 tons. She was owned by Captain H. H. Drown of Marietta, Ohio and her dimensions were: 180 x 39 x 5.5 feet. She had three boilers and her engines were 25.5 inches in diameter with an 8-foot stroke. She had an illuminated high top, fancy pilot house. The Wagoner ran in the Cincinnati-Louisville trade in opposition to the U. S. Mail Line Company in 1866 with the St. Charles for a partner boat under management of Captain Jesse K. Bell. In the fall of 1866 she was bought by Captain Charlie Muhleman and ran Wheeling-Cincinnati. He soon sold her to the Memphis-New Orleans trade, and later she ran New Orleans-Natchez. Among her elegant furnishings was a painting of the original \"Wild Wagoner,\" her namesake and the hero of Thomas Buchanan Reed's poem bearing the same title. Reed, a resident of Cincinnati, was teh author of \"Sheridan's Ride\" which had been read and recited in school houses all over the country during that period. A large picture of the Wild Wagoner, built and commanded by Captain H. H. Drown, is one of the relics at the River Museum at Marietta, Ohio. She was later dismantled and tradition has it that her engines, originally on a gunboat, went to the Pittsburgh towboat Joe Nixon, later the Valiant and then the Transporter. The late Captain Charles W. Knox, who for several years commanded the Pittsburg and Cincinnati packet Keystone State, was a clerk on the Wild Wagoner. The late G. C. Best, father of Mrs. Lillian Ede and Mrs. C. F. Speary, was also clerk on this boat.
Photograph of the NORTH MISSOURI. "60 Souvenir Postal Cards of St. Charles and Vicinity Transferring Trains at St. Charles, MO., 1869. St. Charles, Mo.," "Transferring trains at St. Charles, Mo., 1869, St. Charles, Mo."
Panoramic photograph of St. Louis, Missouri, 1865. Identifiable steamboats (from left to right) are: EDWARD WALSH, WARSAW, U. S. Mail Line C. E. KILLMAN, SULTANA, and EMPRESS. The Old Courthouse rises above the rest of the skyline.
Bombardment of Island Number Ten by the mortar fleet, March 16, 1862. -- Sketched by Alexander Simplot. -- [ See page 219.] The gun-boat fleet dropping down stream to reconnoitre. Steamers towing mortar-boats into position.
This map, plotted out by Norbury Wayman, shows the various locations of steamboat lines and related companies on the St. Louis levee, detailing three periods of time; before 1865; 1865 - 1900; and 1900 - 1953. Lines and companies are donated by name, location and years of operation. Nearby streets are mapped as well, for easy frame of reference. Scale in feet: 100 ft. = 1 inch.
The Dictator was built at Shousetown, Pennsylvania in 1865 for Captain W. B. Donaldson. She had compound engines. She ran Cincinnati and New Orleans out of St. Louis. The Dictator figured in the explosion of the magnificent steamboat Missouri. On January 30, 1866, while racing with the Silver Moon, the Missouri blew up a few miles above Evansville and near the mouth of the Green River. The framework of the boat was completely demolished and many of her passengers and crew were killed. The accident occurred about 10:30 P.M. The Dictator was a short distance behind the Missouri when the explosion occurred, and came alongside to give every possible assistance. She took off the dead and wounded. At least 100 persons were killed, of whom some 20 were cabin passengers, and the rest were about evenly divided between deck passengers and crew. About 25 were rescued, most of them terribly mangled and scalded. The Dictator landed at Newburg and took on two physicians, who went along and gave surgical aid as the boat proceeded. Twenty six days later, on February 25, 1866, the Dictator burned at St. Louis, Missouri.
Str. SULTANA returning 2500 soldiers from Civil War camps April 27, 1865. The boilers exploded just North of Memphis due to overloading. 1547 lives were lost, one of the greatest marine disasters on record.