Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1869-07-21
A Horrible Affair:
A Sleepy Engineer Gets in
the Way of an Ex-
press Train.
Massacre and Burning the
Living and the Dead
Follow.
From the New York Herald, July 1e,

Ipad murders the public has hear,
Of for some time. At midnight O
Wednesday over a dozen human
beings were rushed headlong int,
eternity through the awful livin.
portals of fire, at a place called Mas
Hope, twenty-eight miles west o
Port Jervis, on the Erie railroad
by the downright carelessness o
the engineer in charge of d freigh
train, against which the mail ex
press from New York, at halfpas
6 in the evening, came in collision
The facts in a few sentences arr
these: The freight train backed Oh
switch at Mast Hope depot to gel
out of the way of the passenger
train, but failed to get out fast
enough or far enough to avoid being
struck by the passenger train, fol
which the track should have been
always kept clear. The engineer
of the freight train was, of course,
responsible. 1t is generally stated
he was asleep at the time. A ter
rife collision occurred, three OF
four cars were burned, and in the
laconic dispatch of the Associated
Press, furnished by the railroad
authorities, "some emigrants in the
smoking car, some five or six in
number, were burned" Such is the
skeleton of this fearful tale, making
even IN its faintest recital the blood
of men run cold who know how to
realize ever SO vaguely the un-
painted horrors of a railroad butch
cry. The battlefield is mercy itself
10 such a scene. The soldier sinks
on the sod with little to indicate the
agony of death, but the poor victim
of collision receives no quarter,
even after the soul has left the body.
With his limbs torn asunder, and
perhaps some little spark of tor
tured vitality still remaining, the
fatal stove pours out its contribu-
ton to the work of death and de-
struction, and leaves no vestige of
humanity behind save charred
and blackened bones. As usual,
there was little thought of
danger or of what lay in store for
them some one hundred miles ahead
on the Erie track, among the large
and lively load of passengers that
left the long dock, at Jersey City,
at a quarter to Z o'clock on We'd
nesday evening. The train was a
full one, consisting, with locomotive
and tender, of a mail aud baggage
car, smoking car, two day and four
sleeping coaches, nine cars in all,
carrying nearly four hundred pass
engers. Perhaps net one in all that
large number of rOyageurs recurred
at the moment of starting to Carr s
Rock, MiltOwn, the gorge at Elmira
or any of the other bloody land
marks thickly strewed along this
modern Golgotha. Not one, TO all
appearances, and least of all the
amiable, learned and ever genial
gentleman, Rev. B. B. Halleck, of
No. 329 East Fourteenth street, who
in a few short hours thereafter was
transformed from flesh and con-
sciousness into q black and burnt
mass of lifeless bones. In the for
ward part of the smoking car over
a score of emigrants seated them
selves in the latter part of the even-
ing, after most of those gentlemen
who had sleeping berths had retired
for the night and threw their cigar
stumps away. Several of the emf
grants INDUCED themselves in short
clay pipes, while others threw them-
selves into an attitude of sleep and
others kept telling stories to pass
portion of the night away. The
stay at Turner's Station for supper
was no longer than usual. The
switch between the tracks at Mil
town, placeof unhappy reputation,
was passed by in safety. The con
ductOr went up and down a few
times, to see that all was right,
from the smoking-car 10 the rear
end sleeping coach. The train was
speeding on its course at the rate
Of from twenty to twenty five miles
an hour. With adouble track, wide,
strong cars, new couplings, a pow
erful locomotive running at steady,
splendid pace, the passengers felt
that there was nothing to apprehend
but broken rail. Little reflection,
however, was given to that matter.
The sleepers in the rear coaches
turned around for a moment and
fell away to slumber again.
Every berth was occupied.
Gov. Walker, of Virginia, and his
wife had state room. both bound
for Binghampton. While all were
wrapped in sleep, or in light, un-
easy slumber, ON board the train,
the emigrants in the smoking car
even ceasing to talk, and the doors
opening only at long intervals for
the conductor or some restless
member of the baggage corps to
pass through, and while the train
was rushing along with that speed
of motion which leaves the sensa-
ton on the ear of the passenger
that the wheels dance with a deliri.
Gus revolution on the rail, the flick
ering light at the depot of Mas
Hope hove in sight around long
and easy curve and on heavy
grade. The engineer had his prac
ticed eye on the alert at this par
ticuIar point of the road, not that i
is in anywise as dangerous as othel
portions, but with an instructive
dread of that horrible apparition-f
freight train-he felt more appre'
hension on the curve than if he haC
to cross a shaky trestle bridge On'
hundred feet high. The seconC
look he cast through the bulls ey,
window, an instacce or two afte
he entered on the curve, revealed
the terrible fact to him that some
thing huge, black and nngaihly wa
almost in his immediate front, an
that his train was running wit
lightning pace upon it. Anothe
moment and the headlight of hi
locomotive illuminated the rear Q
the train ahead, while his ear caugh
the sound of the rattle and jolt of
long, loose freight train. Coolly b