| From the Richmond Dispatch |
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| September 12, 1863 |
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| Affairs in Tennessee |
| ***** The Lynchburg Republican says: |
| As we have before announced, the Yankees
captured at Knoxville a freight train of fourteen cars. Three days
afterwards they came up to the neighborhood of Watauga bridge with the
train loaded with soldiers, supposed to be between 600 and 1,000 men
in number, and demanded a surrender of the bridge and the force at
that place. Gen. Jackson, who commanded the bridge, refused to
surrender, and determined to resist any attempt to capture the bridge.
The Yankees attempted to fall back with their train to Jonesboro', but
some one had removed some of the rails
of the track, and the train ran off. We have heard of no casualties,
except we understand that the President of the East Tennessee &
Virginia railroad, Mr. Branner, was on the train, and was thrown out
of the cars and had his face considerably bruised and cut. |
| On their way up from Knoxville to Watauga
bridge the Yankees captured two trains at Morristown, which is about
half way between Knoxville and Jonesboro'. The capture of these trains
to us was very unfortunate. It enabled the Yankees to come up to
Jonesboro' two days after they captured Knoxville, whereas without the
trains they could not have made preparations to move there under two
or three weeks by the ordinary roads, and they would no doubt have
been assailed on their march by the loyal Southern men and some of
their wagon trains cut off. They now have command of the East
Tennessee & Virginia railroad from Jonesboro' to Knoxville, a
distance of a hundred miles, and of the East Tennessee & Georgia
railroad from Knoxville to Loudoun, a distance of thirty miles, and
have three trains to give them facilities for moving troops and
supplies. |
| Mr. Branner, the President of the East [Tennessee]
& Virginia Railroad, has been much censured for suffering three of
his trains to be captured by the enemy, and some even suspect him or
his conductors or engineers of disloyalty. We hope such is not the
fact; but some one has been guilty of such gross blundering as to
amount almost to a crime. ***** |
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