| From the Danville, Va. Register |
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| April xx, 1965 |
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| Wreck at South Boston Delayed President |
| ***** |
| Captain R. Walton Sydnor of
Danville, on April 3, 1865, was commander of the 1st Regiment,
Virginia Reserves, stationed at Staunton River Bridge on the {Richmond
& Danville} railroad, about 50 miles east of Danville, when
he was ordered to return to Danville with his command {about
10 men}. "We boarded a freight train -- old box cars --
which had a number of sick and wounded soldiers from the hospital in
Richmond on their way home to Georgia. Soon after leaving Staunton
River our train was wrecked. In some way, the trucks of one of the
cars turned and got out of place and the bottom of the car fell
through, and the soldiers who were in this box car were caught right
under the wheels and were terribly mangled; five or six were killed
outright. As this train was just preceding the one which carried
President Davis and staff, we had to act promptly. I had charge of a
detail of men to bury the dead soldiers. We took up their bodies on
the old car doors, carried them up the slope some fifty or one hundred
yards, and buried all in one grave, protecting them as best we could
with boards from the old car." |
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