PVT Charles Bedwell was a Union soldier captured by Confederate soldiers during the Civil War and held as a POW. He was freed from prison at the end of the Civil War and taken to Vicksburg, Mississippi. While he was there, a 260-foot-long wooden steamboat named the Sultana made an unscheduled stop to repair its boiler while on a routine journey from New Orleans to St. Louis. When it had been repaired, the Captain of the Sultana contracted with the U.S. Government to carry former Union prisoners of war from Confederate prisons back into Northern territory. A Union Army officer then ordered all of the more than 2,000 former prisoners at the Vicksburg parole camp and hospital to board the steamboat. Including members of the crew and the previous passengers, these additional passengers meant nearly 6 times the number of people were crowded aboard the steamboat than it was designed to carry.

The Sultana steamed north up the Mississippi River, but the severe overcrowding and faster river current caused by the spring thaw required an increase of pressure be placed on its newly patched boilers. Shortly after leaving Memphis, Tennessee on April 27th, the overstrained boilers exploded, blowing apart the center of the boat and starting an uncontrollable fire. Many of those aboard who were not killed immediately perished as they tried to swim to shore. Of the initial survivors, 200 later died from burns sustained during the incident. At least 1,195 of the more than 2,200 passengers and crew died, making the Sultana incident the deadliest maritime disaster in U.S. history.

Although PVT Charles Bedwell was listed as a passenger on the Sultana's manifest at the time of the disaster, he was never seen or heard from again. He wasn't listed as being a survivor nor was his body identified after the disaster. Therefore his family was never able to determine if his body had been recovered and buried or was lost in the Mississippi River. He was to have disembarked the Sultana at its next scheduled stop at Paducah, Kentucky where he was to board another steamboat to Nashville, Tennessee.

Bio by Sonja Bedwell