By Nancy Pope, Historian and CuratorIllustration of the America and United States collision from Harpers Weekly, Dec. 26, 1868.On the night of December 4, 1868, two ships of one of the nation’s largest steamship companies, the U.S. Mail Line, collided, killing about 40 people and wounding dozens more. The U.S. Mail Line was the first packet line [1] on the Ohio River and dominated the steamboat trade between Cincinnati, OH and Louisville, KY for several years. The company advertised their packets as making “direct connections with all railroad and steamboat lines” at the beginning and end of the journey. Where railway lines had yet not been constructed, mail, cargo, and passengers used the combination and railroad and steamboat lines to complete their journeys.