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The Train Wreck
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| The information pertaining to the train
wreck near Cleveland, Tennessee, on or about 4 November 1862 was
copied from the memoirs of Pvt. Marlvin L. Wheeler, Company A, 33d
Alabama Infantry Regiment. Pvt. Wheeler enlisted July 1862 at
Stevenson, Alabama. He was wounded at Chickamauga. |
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A True Copy |
| "It was then the ladder part of
October and first of November. Climatic conditions caused Knoxville to
be the smokiest place we were at, the smoke from our green oak wood
fires did not rise but settled and remained in a heavy black bank just
above the earth and kept our eyes running water nearly all the time
that we were not laying down, it being less dense just next the earth,
and we were glad to leave there one morning early in November in box
cars, a company in a car, with three days cooked rations of flour
bread, fresh beef and bacon. The engines could pull but ten loaded box
cars, say twenty-four to thirty-six fee long. The 33rd moved in the
cars, that time by the left flank, the regimental staff officers or
those who were along at the time and part of the baggage, the cooking
utensils, axes and medical chest, occupying the rear or tenth box and
this time it fell to the lot of Company D, though its place was not on
the extreme right of the battalion, to occupy a box in the second
section or train to our rear, the engine of which train frequently
pushed our train up the grades when we stalled, as it did up the grade
two or three miles south of Cleveland. And while running fast down
grade our train was wrecked about one or two P. M. the day we left
Knoxville, south of Cleveland, killing nine or then of Company G, one
or two of Company E and {blank} of
Company F and {blank} of
Company H. Seventeen in all, whom we buried the next morning in a long
ditch we dug on the southeast side of the railroad track, and built a
worn rail fence around them. We had put sixty-seven crippled ones in
box cars and sent them back to the hospital at Cleveland the evening
of the wreck, soon after getting them out of it. |
| Company B was in the box car next to the
tender which was heaping full of split wood and it was supposed that a
stick of wood dropped off the tender breaking the front axle under our
car. At any rate all the wheels suddenly came out from under our car,
causing a dreadful jar and clogged under the second car, which Company
G, Coopers Co. from Daleville were in. Many were riding on top of the
cars as was usual when moving by rail, and were shook off like shaking
peaches off a tree and badly jolted when they hit the ground. The
coupling between Company B's and Company G's boxes parted and the
primitive engine carried Company B's box bouncing along without any
wheels under it for two or three hundred yards, and it was the
roughest riding we ever experienced. Those in Company B in the front
end of the box got out at the doors on either side, some of them
alighting on their heads. |
| The company guns, accoutrements, knapsacks
and things soon all worked back to the rear end of the box and got
mixed up with us, and when the rear end of the box in bouncing along
would strike the rails it would bounce us men and things a foot or
more from the floor then when the floor would come in contact with us
some would be beneath the pile and get bruised and mashed and were all
banged up and badly frightened when the old fashioned stopped and
after getting out and finding we had no broken bones we hurried back
to where the cars were piled up in and on top of each other and
assisted while men pried up or chopped to pieces the boxes in getting
the crippled or dead out. |
| We were delayed about twenty-four hours,
then we rode in a coal car to Chattanooga where we drew crackers and
bacon." |
| In another part of his document, Pvt.
Wheeler wrote: "Brevet Second Lieutenant Charles Scott was in
charge of Company E at Knoxville and was killed in the railroad wreck
near Cleveland, Tenn. Nov. 1862." He also wrote: "Captain
Ruben J. Cooper of Daleville. Killed in a railroad wreck near
Cleveland, Tenn. November 1862." |
| The above
transcription was provided by the Atlanta History Center in Atlanta.
It is part of a letter from J. Michael Moss to the Norfolk Southern
Corporation, Department of Archives, of December 13, 1990. |
| Also with the letter
is a newspaper article from the November 5, 1989 Cleveland Daily
Banner. The article is "Monument unveiled, dedicated" by
Allen Mincey and details the dedication of a monument at Fort Hill
Cemetery, honoring the men who died in the wreck. The following names
are on the monument: Capt. R. J. Cooper, Lt. Charles Scott, Privates
Wm. M. Watson, T. A. Pritchard, Clinton Evans, O. M. Broxton, Z.
Chandler, John Hughes, T. Z. Nichols, G. L. Smith, Edward Nix, Lovett
M. Bush, John G. Lewis, H. Clark, M. Noblin, and B. Lloyd. |
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