| From Chattanooga Daily Rebel |
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| March 8, 1863 |
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| The Disaster at Chunkey Bridge {on
the Southern (of Mississippi) RR} |
| The Crisis publishes the
following statement of the section master, Mr. A. T. Temples,
concerning this disaster: |
| On Monday morning, after the
rains of the day previous, I took three hands -- all I had in my
employ -- and with the hand car went over the whole line of my
section, which is eight miles long, attending to shoving the drift
from the different bridges. I was at the bridge where the accident
occurred twice in the forenoon and twice in the evening. I visited the
bridges four times a day, and there was no drift at all against the
bridge until between 9 and 10 o'clock on the morning of Wednesday. Had
been to this bridge four times each day. By 3 o'clock P. M. on
Wednesday the drift had accumulated so thick and the streams so much
swollen, that I could not move it with a dozen hands, had they been
with me. The Chunkey was then at its highest, and the bridge had
swagged down stream about one hour. Meantime, one of the bents passed
out, and with it a large portion of the drift. The evening freight
train was then due and laying at the station just below. There were
several men at the bridge at the time, and I asked Mr. Green Harris,
one of my neighbors, to stop the approaching train, which he did,
while I returned to the section house. As the train ran slowly, the
conductor told me to be sure to notify the train that would leave
Meridian at 3 the next morning of the danger at the bridge. I
said I would do so, and took my hand car immediately and went to
the water tank, where Mr. Hardy, an employee of the road, was working.
I told him to stop the trains at the tank, and not let them pass, as
the road was all torn up and two other trains were then at Hickory
Station, and could get no further, and that one bent was out of the
bridge and they could not cross. "I live so far off that I cannot
be here myself," was the reply. Then I told him to be sure and
keep a negro there for the purpose. I then returned to the bridge and
found that the water had fallen about two inches. I then dug a hole in
the middle of the track, and put up a thick pole, about as near as I
could tell 150 yards from the bridge. This is the usual method of
stopping trains when danger is ahead. Unable to do any more good, I
returned to the section house at dark. The next morning I had the
hands up before daylight and was just going out on the road to work,
having full confidence that Hardy would not let the trains pass the
tank. Just as I started out, I met a man running up the road with the
news of the accident. |
| The correspondent who
furnishes the statement says: |
| Wherever the fault may lie,
and whoever may be culpable in this terrible disaster, the officers of
the railroad company, high in authority, will have to bear a large
share. Their section men are furnished with neither flags or signal
lights, nor a sufficient number of hands to keep the road in anything
like repair. To believe that one old man with three negro men, one of
whom is sick most of his time, can keep eight miles and fifteen
bridges on such a road in good order, is simply ridiculous. |
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