 Captain Howell was only 34 years old at the time of the sinking, and there were questions raised about his competence and experience.The fact that he was the brother-in-law of former Confederate President Jefferson Davis, no doubt created a cloud of ill-feeling around him, but his experience as a mariner was comparable to other steamboat captains at the time.He studied at the US Naval Academy prior to the outbreak of the Civil War and commanded a gunboat for the Confederate Navy for two years.