re: Steamboats on the Mississippi

If you've ever been to the towns near the Great Smokey Mountains National Park, you may have seen Dandridge TN. Dandridge was also an occasional steamboat destination when the water was high enough, even though it's almost in the mountains. Those magnificent boats could go places because they were needed to go to those places.

And thanks to the comment about muddy waters and ships' boilers. I hadn't thought of that.

Which book is referenced in the OP?

Damn, you would think they would come up with a PSV for the boilers since they were constantly blowing up.

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were union troops returning home.

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they shouldn't of ever left home in the first place

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Far West was a shallow draft sternwheel steamboat (or riverboat) plying the upper Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers in the Dakota and Montana Territories, in the years from 1870 to 1883. By being involved in historic events in the Indian Wars of the western frontier, the Far West became an iconic symbol of the shallow draft steamboat plying the upper Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers in the era before railroads dominated transport in these areas.

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Far West gained a place in military and steamboat history during the Great Sioux War of 1876. The Far West was under contract to support a military column of infantry and cavalry units under General Alfred Terry, Colonel John Gibbon and Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer. The column was advancing up the Yellowstone, seeking a large Sioux and Cheyenne encampment which was moving along the river drainages to the south. The Far West brought supplies to the column, and it was used by Terry as a headquarters and also to ferry and move troops on the river. On June 21, the Far West was moored on the Yellowstone at the mouth of Rosebud Creek and was the site of the fateful meeting of officers after which Custer and the 7th Cavalry was dispatched south up the Rosebud seeking the Indian encampment. On June 25, 1876, the 7th Cavalry under Custer suffered a disastrous defeat at the Battle of the Little Bighorn . Five of the companies of the 7th were annihilated along with Custer, and the remaining companies suffering significant numbers of dead and wounded. Far West made her way from the Yellowstone up the Bighorn River to the mouth of the Little Bighorn where she was loaded with the wounded from the battle. Traveling night and day, she returned downriver to Bismarck, Dakota Territory, making the 710 mi (1,140 km) run in the record time of 54 hours and bringing the first news of the military defeat which came to be popularly known as the "Custer Massacre".

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LINK