Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1864-07-21

rendered the country and the public with
tales of blood, scenes of slaughter, and the
accumulated horrors of the battle field, we
are not yet so used to them as to feel un-
moved when, on a similar scale some fear
full railroad catastrophe brings them to us
face to face amid the quiet of civil life.
One of these terrible catastrophes, the
most terrible that has happened in this
country for some years, took place on FRI
day morning last when the grave was again
opened to receive q hecatomb of human
life, offered at the shrine of managerial in
efficiency aud subordinate recklessness.-
1t appears that on the 18th instant batch
of eight hundred and thirty-three rebel
prisoners left Point Lookout under the
charge of one hundred and twenty-five
Union soldiers. They safely arrived at
New York on the 14th, and left Jersey City
at A. M. on the morning of the 10th, en-
route for Elmira, New York, whittier they
had been ordered to proceed.
All went well, and the convoy reached
Port Jervis in the best of spirits. At Port
Jeryis the double track of the Erie railroad
ends, and for the next twenty-tour or
twenty five miles the road is but single
track to LackawaXen junction, with occa-
sional lengths of double track where the
nature of the road permits.
Throughout the whole of this distance,
and for some miles further on, the railroad
runs up the valley of the Delaware, and is
full of sharp curves and awkward turns,
along which it is often impossible for the
engine driver TO see more than fifty or six
ty yards in advance. 1t was along this
piece of the road, about two miles from
Shohola, and when turning point of Que
of the abutting hills, that the train of eigll-
teen cmigrant cars, with its freight of nine
hundred and fifty-eight souls, running at
the rate of twenty-five miles an hour, met
a coal train of fifty cars, with each load
of twelve tons, that came laundering down
the incline from LaXawaXen. When the
trains came in sight of each other they could
not have been more than one hundred
yards apart, the drivers not having time to
reverse their engines and jump off before
death was upon them the driver of the pas
senger train named William Ingram, and
histireman, named Tuttle, being both ia
ken off the engine dead, as was the fireman
of the coal engine, named Phil0 PrentisS.
The shock was tremendous, and its re-
suits awful, though fortunately neither of
the engines left the line. The tender of the
passenger engine was turned up on end,
the wood for fuel being thrown in front.
and bnrying the driver and fireman before
named. The first car, of course, was ut
terly destroyed, being jammed, as a specta-
six feet, while to complete its demolition,
the tender that had been tipped on end fell
back OH its roof. 1t contained thirty-seven
men, some of whom were on the platform
at the time of the collision, and from its
wreck thirty-siX were taken out dead, only
one man escaping with his life by falling
between the platforms to the earth.
Three of the cars in all were totally de-
stroyed. and seven or eight of them so
much brc ken as to be entirely useless, and
it was in these cars that the greatest loss of
life occurred; for when the collision took
place two Union soldiers were placed as
| sentinels at each door on the platforms of
each car, which were also occupied by some
of the rebels beguiling the way by conver-
sation with the sentry. OF the men thus
standing all were Immediately killed, save
one or two.
As soon as possible the survivors set to
work under the guidance of the Captain in
charge of the body, to eXtricate the dying
and wounded from their fearful position,
and, in the meantime, word was sent to
Shohola, apprising the authorities there of
the state of things, who Immediately tele
graphed for assistance to Port Jervis,
whence in short time, Hugh Riddle, Esq,
District Superintendent, arrived on the
scene of disaster in relief train, with three
The scene is described by those who es-
capped as most appalling, the road blocked
up with debris, car piled upon car in the
most indescribable confusion, the bodies of
those thrown from them covering the road
at every step, the flying dust and binding
smoke from the quenching fires, the noise
of the escaping steam, and, above all, the
fearful groans and heart-rending cries of
the injured and expiring will never be for
gotten. Some of the cOrpses were shock
ingly mutilated, heads completely crushed,
bodies transiiXed, impaled on timbers or
iron rods, or smashed between the colliding
beams, while one man was discovered dead,
sitting on the top of the upturned tender,
in grotesque and ghastly mockery of the
scene around him.
When the cries of the last wounded had
directed the searchers to his place of inn
prisonment, and the last corp,e removed
from its temporary tomb, it was found that
the victims numbered sixteen Union men
and forty-fouT' rebels, dead; while the
wounded numbered onehundred and twen-
ty, some of them wounded mortally-in-
deed, four have since died, and number
of others cannot be expected to recover
j. L. Ridgway, Esq, Associate Judge of
Pike county, was soon on the spot, and af-
ter consultation with Mr.. Riddle and the |
officer in command of the men, jury was
empanneled and an inquest held; after |
which large trench was dug by the SOL
diers and the railway employees, 76 feet |
long, 8 feet wide, and feet deep, in which |
the bodies were at once inferred in boxes,
hastily constructed-one being allotted to |
tour rebels and one to each Union soldier. |
The wounded were conveyed as soon as |
possible to Shohola, where they met with |
every attention and aid that surgical skill |
could suggest and the limited accommoda-
tion permit, from Drs. Appley, ,Hardenburg,
Cooper, Deborn, Lawrence and Walsh, as
sisted by number of volunteers from the
inhabitants of the neighborhood.
The ladies of the vicinity also were un-
wearied in rendering those kind offices
which womanly tenderness alone knows
how to bestow, besides bringing soups, jel-
lies, and other delicacies so grateful to the
and fevered patient. The names of
these good Samaritans, so far as we could
If we do injustice by
omitting any that should be mentioned we
sincerely regret it--are Madames Lotus,
Deborn, Halbut, Kelsall, JOHNSON, Bross,
Gardner, and Spring, and Misses
Skinner, Br0ss, and Hamilton.
The line was cleared on Friday night, and
On Saturday morning early the officer in
proceeded with the rest of the
men to Elmira, taking withhim most ofthe
seven or eight of them cases re-
luiring apiputation, which could not be
performed at Shohola and the others more
or less severely. injured, leaving only twen-
ty-two of the worst cases at Shohola, of
which, as before stated, four died on Satnr-
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