| From the Augusta Constitutionalist |
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| July 14, 1864 |
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| ***** |
| On the {Richmond
&} Danville road the Yankees boast they destroyed upwards
of twenty-five miles of the track and the villainous gratulation seems
only too true. For fully that distance the entire track has been
annihilated, the sills and cross pieces, this road being constructed
in a peculiar manner, reduced to ashes, and the very rails partially
consumed. The latter statement may seem sufficiently singular to any
one until informed that these rails are of the variety denominated as
the strap rail -- to-wit: a thin, flat strip, or strap, of
iron, which, of course, when exposed to an intense heat, would blister
and peal off in great quantities. In destroying the road, the raiders
are said to have proceeded in the most methodical manner, and
apparently according to a pre-conceived plan, after tearing up rails,
sills, and cross pieces, a foundation would be laid of the latter,
then upon that some rails be placed, then more timber, and so on, in
alternate rows of wood and iron, until the pile was completed when it
would be set on fire. Every ten or twelve yards or so these pyres were
placed, their sites being now marked by piles of ashes and paltry
heaps of blistered and useless iron. |
| ***** |
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