| From the Memphis Appeal |
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| September 1, 1863 |
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| Letter From Canton |
| From our Special Correspondent |
| Canton, August 22, 1863 |
| The New Orleans, Jackson &
Great Northern railroad, running hence to New Orleans, is almost
entirely destroyed. Between here and Jackson, twenty-three miles, all
the bridges are burned, twelve miles of cross ties taken up and rails
bent. It might, with energy and a good force, be repaired to Jackson in
a month. Below Jackson, affairs are worse. What our own men left the
Yankees destroyed, and what the Yankees left our men destroyed, each
party having had two throws at it. The locomotive's whistle will not be
heard south of Jackson until after the war. This company had forty-seven
engines, very fine machinery for engines and railroad work, and the
railroad was well stocked with freight and passenger cars. All is
destroyed but two engines and probably a dozen cars. |
| The Mississippi Central has
fared nearly as bad, but will be able to run after a few weeks. |
| With the destruction of this
road is connected a more melancholy circumstance. Nearly half of the
employees went off with the Yankees. Most of those men, though they had
been South for a long time, were of foreign and Northern birth, while
not a few of them were born South. A partial list follows: Tom Kelly,
Larry Murphey, Cunningham, James McCluchy, James Hammond, J Scales,
Thos, Murdah, J. Scully, M. Boyle, Pat Keenan, E. Seary Jack Mahony,
Harry Travis -- all Irish; John Bowman and Stotzenberger, Dutch; Saxon,
New Orleans; Vanbouten, Kentucky; Franklin, Virginia; Van Leon, New
York; Oliver Edsworth, Ohio; Jack Wilson, Yankee; Tom Crown, Charles
Peel, Driver, English. This is by no means all, but no other names came
to my information. As an act of justice to the true men who have been
employed on these roads, I will furnish a full list as soon as possible. |
| ***** |
| B. |
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