Where'd we hear that an alligator was also on board riding inside a wooden cage? When the calamity started, a soldier kilt the gator, threw the cage into the river, jumped-in after it, and consequently survived the worst marine disaster in U.S. waters. That stretch of the Mississippi, where the SULTANA went to heaven, is also known as "Paddy's Hen and Chickens".
Cap'n Handsome Harry Hamilton recounted the tragedy every time the DELTA QUEEN passed-by, and the impact of passing the locale where so many had died was as moving as accounts of the sinking of the TITANIC in frigid Atlantic waters, on another April night, some forty-seven years later. Steaming by Paddy's Hen and Chickens was like walking alone past a haunted graveyard on a cold, dark, and lonely night. The memory remains like a gourd of cold water thrown on my spine bone.
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