| From the Richmond Dispatch |
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| March 10, 1862 |
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| Railroad disasters |
| A terrible accident occurred on the New Orleans
and Jackson {New Orleans Jackson & Great
Northern} Railroad, on the 27th ult. It seems that a lumber
train, going down, collided with a passenger train, on board of which
was the 7th
Mississippi
regiment, Col. Goode, en route for Columbus
, killing twenty- five, and severely wounding twenty-six more. The
company which sustained the greatest loss was from Amite co., Miss.
The engineer of the lumber train, by whose negligence the accident
occurred, has not been seen since the collision took place. The N. O.
True Delta says: |
| The collision itself would be impossible
to describe, so unexpected was it, and so fearful in its might. The
lumber train may have been going at the rate of about fifteen miles an
hour, and the soldier train about twenty. The first being heavier and
more solid, was comparatively uninjured, except the engine;
but the first and second passenger cars, crushing into each other,
made an awful wreck, and piled up dead men and dying in one horrible
heap. It was a long time before they could be all extricated. |
| Soon after the accident the down train for
the city arrived at the scene, and fortunately brought as a passenger
Dr. G. W. Devron, the house surgeon of the Confederate States Army
hospital on
Common street
. By his prompt care and the services of Surgeon Bowie and Assistant
Surgeon J. M Thornhill, of the
Mississippi
regiment, the latter of whom forgot, in his sympathy for others, that
one of his own ribs had been broken, many a gallant volunteer's life
was saved who must otherwise have soon expired. |
| When the train from this city reached
there, the engine was at once sent back
for assistance and brought the first exaggerated report of the affair.
Dr. Devron would not wait, however, for the arrival of this aid, but
had four cars prepared as soon as possible to bring here all of those
who were badly wounded. |
| The regiment then continued on its way,
taking with it between fifty and sixty slightly wounded, and
twenty-one corpses to be sent to the homes of the several deceased for
burial by their families or friends.
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