General Slocum: No Longer Forgotten

On June 15 1904: The Excerson Steamer General Slocum set sail with 1,300 Men, Women and Children for a sunday school picnic. She never made it to her destination. Half way through her voyage the Slocum burst into flames, and because of faulty firehoses, inexcessable lifeboats, and lifejackets that had rotted, or were filled with iron to meet weight requirements, and the actions of an inexperanced and cowardly crew 1,021, almost 90-98% of whom were women, children and infants, died.
The Second sequel to my USS Indianapolis Video

I feel this song has disaster tribute written all over it, and of all the sea disasters I've set to this song, this one is the most heart wrenching and also the most inexcusable, because it wasn't a warship, or a liner carrying controban, it was a passeger fairy taking children and their families to play in the sunshine, and have a picnic on the river bank. Greed, inexperance, and stupidity allowed something to happen that should never have happened.

Dedicated to the Memory of the Victims of June 15th 1904.

Music: Sleeping Sun
Artist: Nightwish
Subject: The General Slocum

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• General
• Slocum
• Fire
• New
• York
• City
• 1904
• Nightwish
• Sleeping
• Sun
• June
• 15
• Tribute
• Disaster

[stephenpyx]

I first found about this tradgedy while watching the history channel. I just wish the author of the video could have put some narration behind it to make it stand out better or at least clarify what had happened.

[snakes3425]

@stephenpyx

This is one of my early videos and at the time I was still developing my style of making videoes for YouTube

[AwesomeBeagle123]

At 0:54 howcome we can't see fire or smoke? And the island at 1:52 I used to be able to see it from my apartment window until I moved. Whenever I would drive by it I feel like I can see the ghost of the GS burning. I also think I've seen rotten wood on the island when I use my telescope, could that be from the GS?

[snakes3425]

@AwesomeBeagle123

0:54: The photo is from a pre-fire voyage

There's more to the story, after the fire wreck was raised and converted into the Barge Maryland, and sank in 1911 while carrying a shipment of coke from Camdon to Newark, the wreck of the Slocom was discovered by Clive Cussler in 2000 at Corson's Inlet New Jersey, sadly the wreck was blown to pieces by the Army Corps of Enginieers to clear the channel in 1912 and time has done the rest

[jackthayer]

can someone please tell me where i can find books movies anything like that about this ship u see i study tragedies like these

[snakes3425]

The only books I'm awhare of that have been written about the Slocum Disaster are Ship Ablaze, Darkest Hours, and Fire on the River. I would also recomoned reading the chapter deveoted to the Slocum in Sea Hunters II, which describes the hunt fro the Slocum's wreck (She sank after being converted into a barge named Maryland) The disaster was also featured in the documentary My Father's Gun, there is also a documentary from Germany, which was made in 1998 called the Slocum's On Fire.

[Bagels503]

God bless those lost souls.

[asianessa1]

My Grandmother had cousins on the General Slocum. I'm looking for a passenger list.

[ninjaco99]

Your the one I can count on when I need to do a report on somethin about sinking boats (Like the Titanic.)

[1958debs]

@snakes3425 The was a show on the Discovery networks commemorating the one hundred years since the tragedy in 2004.

[TheStrasburg90]

youdo too much "Sleeping Sun" by Nightwish...

[stephenpyx]

possible rescuers because street gangs were rowing to the scene extending their oars and when the victim grabbed the oar they would strip them of the jewelry then throw them back in.

[stephenpyx]

have you ever thought about doing a narration version of this event because it is a very interesting story, especially when you take into consideration that most of the passengers if not all of them were on a church outing at the time. That church, if I remember right, (St. Marks Lutheran) had to close down because of lack of members after the fire. It had one last memorial service for the victims. Also the Coast Guard captain who got into trouble for shooting at some will continue