NP, RD 9/12/1863

From the Richmond Dispatch
 
September 12, 1863
 
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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