Dana returned to command in Vicksburg, Mississippi, until December 8, 1864, when he was ordered to head the Department of Mississippi, this last of his U.S. Army assignments lasting until May 14, 1865. He was also in overall command of the area where the steamboat "Sultana" exploded on the Mississippi River near Memphis, Tennessee on April 27. The paddlewheeler had been contracted by the U.S. Government to return home recently released Union prisoners of war, and when it docked in Vicksburg for repairs to leaky boilers it became grossly overcrowded with soldiers wanting to get home. An April 27, 2007, article in the "Washington Times" explained what Dana had been told about the ship before it departed Vicksburg: