Qualla: Steamship Pulaski Disaster

Steamship Pulaski Disaster: Introduction

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Charles Ellms, Public domain. Forty-five minutes. That is all the time the passengers of the Pulaski had between the thunderclap of a starboard boiler explosion and the black Atlantic swallowing their ship whole. It was June 14, 1838, a warm Thursday night on the coastal run from Savannah to Baltimore, and most of the 168 souls aboard were asleep when the blast ripped through the middle of the vessel at eleven o'clock. The concussion killed some instantly. Others staggered onto a deck that was already splitting apart beneath their feet. Within three-quarters of an hour, the Pulaski was gone, and the survivors -- barely a third of those who had boarded -- were left clinging to wreckage in the open ocean, miles from the Carolina shore.

Image: Charles Ellms | Public domain

Steamship Pulaski Disaster: A Voyage of Prominence

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Charles Ellms, Public domain. The Pulaski was no ordinary coastal steamer. She carried the Southern elite -- planters, bankers, politicians, and their families -- on the popular summer route between Savannah and the mid-Atlantic ports. On her final voyage, the passenger manifest read like a social register. W...

Image: Charles Ellms | Public domain

Steamship Pulaski Disaster: Eleven O'Clock Thunder

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Charles Ellms, Public domain. The explosion announced itself with a violence that left no room for comprehension. The starboard boiler detonated, tearing through the midsection of the ship and opening a wound that no crew could close. Passengers who survived the initial blast emerged into chaos -- scalding st...

Image: Charles Ellms | Public domain

Steamship Pulaski Disaster: The Weight of Loss

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Charles Ellms, Public domain. Of the 168 passengers and crew aboard, only about 59 survived. The Lamar family was devastated: Jane Lamar, five of her children, and a niece all perished. Her husband Gazaway and their eldest son Charles Augustus Lafayette Lamar were among the few family members to escape. The c...

Image: Charles Ellms | Public domain

Steamship Pulaski Disaster: Echoes Across Centuries

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Charles Ellms, Public domain. The Pulaski's story refused to stay buried. Newspapers in 1838 devoted columns to what they called a "heart-rending catastrophe," and the disaster entered the literary imagination almost immediately. Eugenia Price wove the tragedy into her 1985 novel To See Your Face Again, the s...

Image: Charles Ellms | Public domain

Steamship Pulaski Disaster: A Graveyard in Open Water

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Charles Ellms, Public domain. From the air, there is nothing to mark where the Pulaski went down. The ocean off Cape Hatteras looks the same as it has for centuries -- gray-green swells rolling toward the barrier islands, the pale line of the Outer Banks curving away to the south. But the waters here are amon...

Image: Charles Ellms | Public domain