When military business took Captain Williams away from Vicksburg in mid-April, Captain Frederic Speed, assistant adjutant general for the Department of the Mississippi, volunteered to be his interim replacement. Since Williams was still absent when the Union troops were paroled, Speed began to assemble the rolls and arrange transportation for the war-weary soldiers. The first contingent of 1,300 anxious troops was shipped upriver on the Henry Ames, followed soon after by 700 soldiers aboard the Olive Branch.

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The Sultana finally docked at Vicksburg early on the evening of April 23. Arriving so soon after the departure of the Olive Branch, the Sultana almost did not get any prisoners to carry north. Captain Speed, aware that the rolls of only three hundred of the remaining soldiers had been prepared, reported to General Dana that no prisoners would be shipped on the Sultana; he could not, he said, complete the remaining paperwork before the steamer's scheduled departure on the following day.

Furious when he learned that his steamer was to get none of the prisoners promised him, Mason went immediately into Vicksburg and met with Colonel Hatch, General Smith, and Captain Speed. At first, Speed refused to place any of the soldiers on the Sultana until the necessary rolls were completed. During the meeting, however, Captain Williams, who had returned to Vicksburg that afternoon, convinced Speed that there was no need to prepare the rolls before the soldiers boarded the steamer. According to Williams, the men could merely be checked off as they went aboard, and the rolls completed after the departure of the boat.

Later that same evening, Speed reported to General Dana that all the prisoners remaining at the parole camp and in the hospital at Vicksburg would be shipped as planned on the Sultana. Dana was also informed that the total number of prisoners to be shipped would be between 1,300 and 1,400, the number of men Speed estimated still awaited transport.

Captain Speed's decision to place all of the remaining prisoners on one vessel was expedient rather than prudent. Since the Sultana had a legal carrying capacity of 376 passengers, even his estimate would have been far too many for the steamer to hold. In reality, however, Speed had grossly underestimated. Instead of 1,300 to 1,400 prisoners awaiting transport, there were in excess of two thousand.1

Mason knew that time was critical; if the Sultana did not leave on April 24, some other steamboat would carry the remaining troops from Vicksburg. Thus, the leaking boiler that had slowed her return from New Orleans had to be repaired quickly. R. G. Taylor, a local boilermaker who had been summoned to examine the problem, told Mason that extensive repairs were needed. Mason implored Taylor to settle for patching the leaking boiler so that the steamer could leave Vicksburg on schedule. Although he initially refused, Taylor finally agreed to place a small patch over the area leaking steam. After completing the job, he warned that the repairs were only temporary and was assured by Mason that the work would be completed when the Sultana reached St. Louis.

The next morning, Williams and Speed traveled to Camp Fisk. The two officers agreed that Speed would remain at the parole camp to supervise the loading of the men onto the trains, while Williams would ride on the first train back to Vicksburg, where he would keep count as they boarded the Sultana. The tired but excited former prisoners, grouped according to their native states, quickly climbed onto the first train.

The confidence that Williams and Speed had in the ability of the Sultana to carry all the remaining prisoners was not shared by Captain William F. Kerns, the quartermaster in charge of river transportation. Kerns had tried in vain to convince Speed to place some of the men on the Lady Gay, a steamboat then docked at Vicksburg that was larger than the Sultana. Speed, refusing to divide the prisoners, continued to maintain that they all could travel on the one vessel. The Lady Gay, therefore, headed north from Vicksburg without a single paroled prisoner on board.

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