| From the Macon (Ga.) Telegraph |
| |
| April 1, 1865 |
| |
| Terrible Explosion on the Muscogee Railroad |
| Yesterday afternoon, about
three o'clock, says the Columbus Sun of the 31st, as the freight train
in charge of Conductor Wm. Cozart, on its way to Columbus, had reached
the fifteen mile post, just this side of Randall's Creek, by some
means a car ran off the track, and five thousand pounds of powder in a
car were exploded. The result was terrible. Five cars of the seven
attached to the engine were knocked to pieces; the hard clay directly
under the powder car was torn up to the depth of four or five feet,
and all the glass in the engine cab was broken. |
| Mr. Henry Ralston, passenger
from Macon, was instantly killed; and a negro, Bill, so terribly
mangled that it is thought he cannot live. The engineer Hugh McDonald
had his hand injured, and the conductor received a blow over his nose
-- the two last wounds not being at all serious. Mr. Ralston had two
horses on the train. One was killed and the other is thought will not
live. The two cars next to the engine were not much damaged. The
engine alone came to Columbus about six o'clock. |
| The train was running at
ordinary speed. The powder car was the fourth from the engine. It is
not known whether this or the car next to it ran off the track first.
How the powder was exploded no one knows -- certainly not from
carelessness. The report was heard for miles. |
| We are told the body of young
Ralston has been brought to the city. He was quite young, and is of a
highly respectable and wealthy family in Macon. |
|