 Did you know that there was an American shipwreck, not on the ocean, but right here in our United States, which may have cost more lives than any shipwreck ever? And it happened on the Mississippi River. Listen to this true story. The year was 1865. It was April, and our terrible Civil War was finally over. And now that the war was over, tens of thousands of prisoners of war from both sides were being released to go back to their homes.