To this day, this sinking is one of the darkest moments in Maine history.

By Matthew Barker

On February 22, 1864, in the third year of the Civil War, the RMS Bohemian went down off the coast of Cape Elizabeth. Thirty-six immigrant passengers and six crewmen were lost. It is the second-worst disaster in Maine maritime history.

The British Royal Mail Steamer Bohemian, an iron-hulled screw steamer built in Scotland five years earlier for the Allan Line of the Montreal Ocean Steamship Company, left Liverpool on February 4, stopping in Londonderry to board more passengers.

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