| From the Memphis Appeal |
| |
| September 16, 1863 |
| |
| The Terrible Railroad Accident |
| From the Confederacy |
| |
| Yesterday we took the morning train up the
State road {Western & Atlantic RR}. On
arriving at Marietta, we were informed of a most heart-rending accident
and destruction of life from the collision of two trains above Altoona,
and near Etowah. |
| A train left this city on Sunday morning
with the 1st Tennessee battalion and 50th Tennessee regiment on board.
It ran off the track a few miles above Marietta, doing no damage, but
delaying most of the day to get on again, and when on and started once
more, was out of schedule time. |
| The train with which it collided was a
special one, of almost fifteen cars, coming to this city, having on
board only a few sick soldiers -- the boxers being otherwise empty. This
train had stopped at Adairsville and telegraphed to Marietta to know if
the track was clear. The agent there but having been informed of the
morning train running off, replied, "all clear." |
| This was represented to us as the cause of
the collision -- though we did not get our information on this point
from any of the officers or agents of the road. Whether it was the duty
of the conductor, when the morning train ran off, to have sent back a
messenger to Marietta, the nearest telegraph station, to give
information of the fact, so that it might have been known all along the
line of the road, we will not now undertake to decide. |
| Perhaps he was not expecting a special
train to be running out of schedule time; and then perhaps he ought not
to have acted upon this supposition in this time of great emergencies.
On these points we will not now give any opinion, as our information is
not sufficient to warrant it. |
| Both trains met on a curve going at full
speed. All the cars of the empty train were literally smashed to
flinders. From the foremost to the hindmost, they ran into each other
and were splintered and shivered into thousands of pieces. The loaded
cars were not so badly torn to pieces, though they were greatly damaged.
The trucks under a number of them were torn from them, and rolled up
together against the engine -- so great was the momentum and sudden was
the concussion. |
| The sight of the dreadful wreck, the
mangled bodies and blood of the dead, with the piteous screams and
sufferings of the wounded, were indescribable. One soldier was caught
between the tender and engine by the thigh. No efforts could extricate
him and he burned to death against the engine. No mind can conceive the
excruciating tortures he endured; and his pathetic pleadings to comrades
to chop off his thigh and relieve him from that horrid burning as well
as of life at the same time, constituted a most heart-rendering
spectacle. His request, for some reason, was not complied with, and he
burned and screamed and begged to be cut loose for some three hours
before his life was extinct. |
| In this sad collision eighteen soldiers
were killed and sixty-seven were wounded. We were at Big Shanty last
evening when the ambulance train passed there, bringing the dead for
internment, and the wounded for treatment, to Marietta. We were unable
to procure a list of their names. Some officers belonging to the
command, however, promised to send them to us tomorrow. |
|