Late in the night on the Mississippi near Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the steamboat H.W.R. Hill, bound from Memphis to New Orleans suffered a massive rupture of its boiler head. This sprayed massive amounts of steam onto the deck where passengers and crew were sleeping. In all, forty-five people were reported killed with a dozen others scalded seriously. The H.W.R. Hill later served in the Confederate river fleet. (By John Osborne)