| From the Columbus (Ga.) Times |
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| August 4, 1864 |
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| Burning of a Baggage Car on the Danville
Railroad |
| Great Destruction of Bank Deposits and
Other Property |
| On Saturday morning last,
about 1 o'clock, as the train from Danville was passing Staunton river
bridge, in charge of Conductor Wootten, it was discovered that the
baggage car was in flames and the train was at once stopped. An effort
was made to check the fire, but the fanning the flames had received from
the momentum of the train had ignited every part of the car, involving
in its destruction an immense amount of property. There were on board
the car the deposits of three banks of Staunton, removed to Danville for
safe keeping when the former place was threatened by Hunter. The
deposits were being returned to the institutions, which were the Valley
bank, the Central bank and a branch bank, not known. |
| The specie alone, gold and
silver, belonging to these banks, and on board the ill-fated car,
amounted to upwards of three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. All of
the precious metal that was recovered was molten, and reduced from its
original shape of coin to great lumps and crude masses of gold and
silver metal, which ran down through the bed of the car in a golden and
silvery stream upon the track, so eye witnesses affirm, so great was the
heat engendered. What amount of paper issue the banks had on board we
could not ascertain. |
| Mr. Terrill, the Government
messenger of the Southern Express Company, was on board in the baggage
car with Government funds in his charge to the amount of twenty thousand
dollars in gold, and over a half million in Confederate Treasury notes.
As soon as the alarm of fire was given he sprang for his box, and,
throwing it from the car, followed with a plunge. He lost nothing. The
Express Company loses on freight and packages about thirty-five thousand
dollars. Some of the freight packages which was only slightly damaged
were received at the Express office on Saturday. The railroad company
sustains a loss of at least one hundred thousand dollars, and perhaps
double that sum on the baggage of passengers lost, and for which the
passengers held checks. |
| As yet the origin of the fire
is a mystery. The bank deposits destroyed were being carried back to
Staunton preparatory to the resumption of business by the banks. It is
said there was a guard in the baggage car, and it is probable enough,
but it is very wonderful, how fire could be communicated under their
very noses and suffered to progress to the extent of enveloping the
entire car without they knowing it and raising the alarm. It is said a
spark from the locomotive fired the car, which would be plausible enough
if the other circumstances were in harmony with it, but they are not. |
| There were several reports on
the street in solution of the affair. One was that the car was robbed of
its bank deposits, specie and notes, and the car then fired to cover up
the robbery in its ashes and ruins. We presume an official enquiry will
be made into the hidden circumstances of this most mysterious crime, if
crime it is. |
| Richmond Examiner |
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