FAIRHOPE, Ala. — Page & Palette will present author Alan Huffman on Thursday, June 25, from 6-8 p.m.. He will speak and sign his book “SULTANA: Surviving the Civil War, Prison and the Worst Maritime Disaster in American History” at the bookstore, located at 32 S. Section St. in downtown Fairhope.

Local history buffs will be interested in the sites in Alabama which were among the venues for “staged experiment in human survival” chronicled in this new book.

From the Tennessee River port of Decatur to the now-extinct ghost town of Cahaba, Alabama provides the setting for the series of pivotal, interwoven stories chronicled in Huffman’s latest book.

Using his background as a journalist, Huffman reports on warfare in north Alabama and the imprisonment of Union troops in the Cahaba prison camp as part of the dramatic story of the sinking of the steamboat Sultana, and along the way, explores what it takes to survive both man-made and natural disasters in any era. Huffman said that what he describes as a staged experiment in human survival offers important insights to making the most of any difficult time.

On an April night in 1865, the Sultana slowly moved up the dark Mississippi River, its overtaxed engines straining under the weight of a human cargo that included an estimated 2,400 passengers — more than six times the number it was designed to carry.

Most were weak, emaciated Union soldiers recently paroled from Confederate prison camps (the majority from Cahaba), who were finally on their way home after enduring the violence of war, the squalor of the prison camps and, for some, as many as three train wrecks en route to Vicksburg, from which the Sultana had embarked. Many were so sick or badly injured that they had to be carried aboard.

At 2 a.m., near Mound City, Ark., seven miles upriver from Memphis, three of the Sultana’s four boilers exploded. Within 20 minutes it went down in fire and water, taking with it an estimated 1,700 lives. Some of the passengers were killed outright by the explosion, scalded by the superheated water released from the boilers, or from injuries caused by the collapse of its superstructure. The majority drowned or were burned alive.

The Sultana remains the worst maritime disaster in American history, resulting in greater loss of life than occurred with the sinking of the Titanic. Yet due to a confluence of overpowering contemporary events, it soon faded into relative obscurity. Less than two weeks before, Lincoln had been assassinated; a week before, Gen. Robert E. Lee had surrendered his army at Appomattox; the day before, John Wilkes Booth had been shot dead.

SULTANA is not only an account of a significant disaster; it is a story of human endurance and adventure that focuses on three survivors, two of whom were imprisoned in Alabama and one of whom returned to the Guntersville area to live after the war. The book encompasses the full range of their experiences — before, during and after the disaster.

For more information, call (251) 928-5295 or visit www.pageandpalette.com.