The deadliest maritime disaster in American history was the explosion of the Sultana on April 27, 1865. The Sultana was a Mississippi riverboat that was transporting liberated Union prisoners of war back from southern POW camps like Cahaba in Alabama and Andersonville in Georgia. The officer in charge of the operation was corrupt and took a large bribe from the boat's owners to book passage for as many prisoners as he could fit onto the boat. The Sultana had a maximum capacity of 376 passengers, but 2,137 prisoners were loaded in Vicksburg, Mississipi for a trip up the river to St. Louis. The boat was so overcrowded that the decks were starting to bow inwards, and had to be braced with large planks. At 2:00 AM on the morning of the 27th, three of the boat's four steam boilers exploded due to faulty maintenance, unleashing a massive cloud of steam that cooked many of the passengers alive and quickly reduced the boat to a burning wreck. To make matters worse, the water in the river was spring snowmelt from up north and deadly cold. Many of the prisoners jumped into the river and died of hypothermia before being rescued. The total number of dead is unknown, but estimates range from 1,168 to 1,547.