In September 1857, the SS *Central America* set out from Havana on what should have been a routine run to New York. She carried more than five hundred souls and a fortune in California gold, the kind of voyage that symbolized American progress and prosperity. But the Atlantic had other plans. For three days a hurricane tore at the ship, stripping away her sails, drowning her boilers, and reducing her passengers to bucket brigades and desperate prayers. Miners tossed away money belts heavy with gold, the decks littered with coins kicked aside in the struggle to survive. On September 12 the Ship of Gold went down, taking nearly six hundred lives and sparking a financial panic on land. Her captain, William Lewis Herndon, became a legend for standing on the bridge, bareheaded, as women and children were saved first. His ship was lost, but his duty was not.