| From the Wilmington Journal |
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| March 10, 1862 |
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| The Newbern Progress says that
about three o'clock on Friday morning, a small boat was seen to pass
under the railroad bridge {on the Atlantic &
North Carolina RR} over the Trent River at that place, but it
did not stop. At four o'clock a light blaze was discovered about
mid-way the bridge. The alarm was instantly given, but the vile perpetrator
of the deed was not discovered. The guard succeeded in extinguishing
the fire, and preventing a disastrous conflagration. |
| The incendiary apparatus was
in the shape of a wire net, or basket, filled with hemp, saturated
with spirits of turpentine, and fastened to the bridge by a common
drawing chain, wrapped with rags, also saturated, as were the timbers
of the bridge clear across. |
| This was evidently a
deliberately planned and skillfully devised scheme to destroy the
bridge. It shows the sort of dangers we have to guard against, and
ought to stimulate our rail road guards, authorities and employees to
renewed vigilance. |
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