Just watched a news item reporting that today is the 145th anniversary of the boiler explosion of the river boat "SULTANA" just above Memphis killing more than 1700 Civil War Union soldiers being moved home after being imprisonned in Southern prisoner of war camps - most had been in Andersonville. The boat had been grossly overloaded by the captain. Still stands as America's greatest maritime loss of life. And from this event grew boiler inspection regulations - and the Hartford Steam Boiler and Inspection Company. The boiler had been repaired earlier in Vicksburg with a "soft patch" applied to the shell with patch bolts. It had bulged out and was heat and beat back into place a few days before it finally failed.