sentences:  As a Confederate agent, Louden was involved in the sabotage and sinking of several Union steamboats near St. Louis, Missouri and, on his deathbed, claimed to have been responsible for the destruction of the steamboat "Sultana", which exploded on April 27, 1865 just north of Memphis, Tennessee, killing an estimated 1,300 to 1,900 paroled Union prisoners and civilians returning home after the war, the deadliest maritime disaster in United States history.Louden supposedly confessed to a man named William Streetor to have planted a coal torpedo, an artillery shell disguised to look like an innocuous lump of coal, in a coal pile used to fire the steamboat's boilers.An article published May 7, 1888 in the "New York Times" refers to Louden's claim about the "Sultana" sinking