NP, CT 8/4/1864

From the Columbus (Ga.) Times
 
August 4, 1864
 
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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