Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1895-12-27

Ignacio Agramonte, son of the cele- brated Cuban general killed in the last war, secretary of the Nuevitas and Pu- erto Principe railroad, in letter to relative in New York describes the re- cent train wreck at Fl Lugareno, caused by insurgent dynamite.
 sWe left Puerto Principe on the morning of the 26th, he says. "Our train was preceded few minutes by locomotive, thoroughly protected with iron sheets and with q strong guard on board. This locomotive, No 6, was in charge of Manuel de Ia Tore. the engi- neer. Our train WAS drawn by the loco. motive Centena1io, which was the new. est and most perfect belonging to the company. Francisco Bejarano y Rod riguez was the engineer in charge, with N. Artila and J. Rubio as firemen. We had a mixed train-ten cattle cars, six cars of general cargo. q third, second and first class coach and an iron car in which there were about 20 soldiers
 @Ias Minas was passed and the train was approaching tho station of Fl Lu- gareno The latter is a pretty little place dotted with sugar houses and the residences of men employed on the plan tation. Thick woods of oak, palms and other trees extend for seme little dis tanee along the side of the track at this point and for several miles back, form ing secure place from which to attack and a safe retreat. The advance locomo- tive passed the bridge known as No. 12. Our train approached and passed i'll safe ty. Suddenly we heard rifle shot, fol lowed almost immediately by deafen- ing report the next instant we were all in a tumble I was thrown violently against the forward end of the car My wife and mother, who were with me, were thrown ill the opposite direction. The crashing of iron and timbers, the believing of cattle, and the general con- fusion which followed cannot easily be described. We knew at once that insur-
 gents had blown up tho train and thought all attack might follow Every one remained motionless for an instant,
 awaiting the expected shower of bullets. but none came.
 1T rushed from our car, with difficult ty managed to get to the ground, and there beheld a wreck such as 1 had never seen before Rails were twisted as though they were ribbons. torn from the
 sleepers, and absolutely tied into dyna-
 mite knots The locomotive had been
 hurled 50 feet to one side, a useless mass of iron. Of the tender nothing was
 left but pile of coal, wood, chains and
 bars The 19 cattle cars were smashed into kindling, the wheels were wrenehed
 from the axles, and scattered i'll every
 direction. Cattle, dead and dying, were
 strewn along the road for 100 feet.
 From midst the tangled mass of iron
 which had formed the tender we ex-
 tracted the two firemen. One had an
 arm and leg missing, with head and body badly bruised. The other was d.
 most separated piece from piece, while
 our engineer was unreeognizable. His
 head was nearly severed from his body,
 and both arms were gone. The brake
 man, who was ill one of the cattle cars, was thrown 50 feet in the mir, alighting in a lot of cattle, thus partially break ing his fall. He sustained fracture of the skull and had one arm broken.
 ''As I jumped from the train saw
 beneath a clump of trees a group of
 about 12 men armed with rifles and machetes. They looked at their work for moment, and then at signal from their leader disappeared i'll tho woods. The Spanish troops in the meantime re-
 mained in the iron ear, expecting the attack which did not follow. I immedi-
 ately telegraphed for assistance and wrecking train from Nuevitas to repair the track. Almost all of the cattle were killed outright or injured to such an ex- tent that It was necessary to end their
 misery. Every car except the first class coach and the iron car of the soldiers was badly damaged. The third class coach was, like the cattle cars, totally demolished. The second class car was jammed into ours, and ours was perehed q half way up on the roof of the iron car. ''On review we found that my wife Y had sustained an injury in tho side of < the Jaw, my sister was more or less bruis- ed, and had a sprained wrist. My
 mother escaped with few scratches on < the arm Most of the passengers were A pretty badly shaken up.
 Upon examination we found that the Insurgents had cut a little path s from the edge of the woods to the track
 and had there between the ties buried dynamite torpedo, connecting it with # wire to the electric battery ill their re- X treat. They allowed the first locomotive "a to pass i'll safety, but as soon as the sec x ond was over the torpedo they touched
 the button of the electric instrument, q and dynamite did the rest Every at
 tempt to ship cattle over the road to-
 ward Havana without paying tax to
 the insurgent government meets with a
 similar result Troops came at once a rom outlying districts and started in
 pursuit of the insurgents, but you might < as we'll look for needles in haystack # as try to find those men when they skip
 into the woods.
 8 50 far our road has lost three en- # slhes out of total of nine and has had
 any number of cars smashed into kin
 ahng wood. Until the present disaster I
 nad no idea of the destructive force of x dynamite. We escaped miraculously,
 put l am sure the insurgents did not l AhoW we were on board, or they would x not have blown up the train. My father, # general lenaeio Agramonte. gave up