Date: 1985
Medium: Airbrushed Dyes / Color Pencil
Hartford Steam Boiler Insurance Company Collection

I was commissioned by Hartford Steam Boiler to paint the wreck of the steamboat "Sultana". It was transporting released Union prisoners back to the north at the end of the Civil War. At 2:00 AM on April 27, 1865, seven miles north of Memphis on the Mississippi River, her boilers exploded. Severely overloaded with more than 2,100 passengers, it became the worst disaster in US Maritime history with approximately 760 survivors.

This painting was printed on the company vacation calendar and has also appeared in documentaries about the disaster and now on the cover of the 2017 book, "Sinking the Sultana".