The U.S. Mail Steamship Company vessel S.S. Central America was lost in an Atlantic hurricane off the coast of North Carolina, the greatest sea disaster in the nation's history to that point. Remarkably, all women and children aboard survived but 423 male passengers and crew died. Also lost in the disaster was a massive amount of gold specie being shipped to California to the East Coast banks and this put further strain on an already nervous economy. (By John Osborne)
Source Citation
R.J. Duhse and Ernest M. Eller, "Last Cruise of the SS Central America," Naval History 4, no. 1 (Winter 1990): 50-51.