Thread drift--

1) if you are a James Joyce fan/scholar then you know about the General Slocum disaster. Ulysses was set in Dublin on June 16 1904, day after the fire, and the Dublin papers were full of the news.

2) if you are a Civil War buff you've heard of Slocum, he commanded the XII corps at Gettysburg and kept Ewell busy on Culp's Hill on July 2nd and 3rd while Longstreet and Pickett were making mischief elsewhere on the battlefield. He went on to command troops at Chattanooga, in the Atlanta campaign, and on the March to the Sea.

3) if you've ever read The Great Bridge (McCullough's history of the Brooklyn Bridge) you've heard of Slocum because he was in politics, arguing with the Roeblings throughout the construction, yet showed up to claim much of the credit.