The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-03-19

IT'S ne that hurls great armies two hun,
dred miles away in a single night ana
storm a city while its people sum are
asleep. IT'S he that takes food and raj
ment to the soldiers camp and he the foe
cares most to capture. what thrllllLs
picture to contemplate on the pages OF
history that tells of the dreadful CONNECT
between our own states thirty years age
when the General and the Iexas,
two historic locomotives of the western
and Atlantic railroad, played hide ana
seek for more than hundred miles, the
former manned by union soldiers, the lat
ter by confederates. The incident, has
gone 10 history and Is familiar to all who
are posted on the war of secession, how
the General was captured by federal
spies and how the confederate crew rush
ed from the breakfast station TO recap
ture2 their engine, engaging hand car a
sufficient distance to get the Texas,
which was on a side track several miles
above, and, then pursuing the federal, who
had gone ahead to tear up the tracks and
burn the bridges to prevent the road from
being used to the advantage of the con-
serals was oYertaken nearly at Chatta-
nooga before sthe crew could accomplish
their work Of destruction. Here one finds
history like creatures that live and
breathe When it is considered that a
monument has lately been erected in the
silent city of the dead where lay the UNI
IONS soldiers at Chattanooga to this old
engine the General surely the senti-
ment holds good-the locomotive is our
Bnt let us carry this sentiment one step
further. When the smoke OF battle mad
been lifted and the roar of artillery hush
ed when the wild wars deadly blast was
blown and gentle peace returned, then
did those two old engines appear in
scene quite as pleasing as their former in
cident had been thrilling, for twas then
that the locomotive began its greatest
work for this Countrywide work of max
ing peace between old foes. Where
is there an agent so powerful in healing
wounds of war, in bridging bloody chasms
and restoring peace, contentment and
ease? How aptly does the picture of the
General and the Texas as they APP
near lust after the war between the states
trailing the white flag of peace back and
forth down Sherman's disastrous march,
interchanging the commerce of the south
with that of the north, bringing immi-
grants from across Mason and DiXons
line to the fertile fields of the south, so
lately drenched with the blood of martyrs
who lay shrouded in their uniforms of
blue and gray. Then, indeed, did the rail-
roads become the firmest pillar meath the
structzre of this republic; then did the
citizenship. He mingled the warriors of
the north with the warriors OF the south,
with peace restored at a time When the
latter were turning about their arduous
task of building up that new industrial
south which is yet destined to prove the
salvation of this country. He brought the
CAPITALISTS from New England to invest
his millions in the rich lands OF the south
and plant their factories and industrial
enterprises here. In turn ne TOOK back
from those mills their products to the
trade centers of New England, thus firm
ly establishing countrys commerce and
causing foes to form friendships which
never could have been formed through
trading circles or of social spirit without
the locomotives part in the reconstruction
of this union of states. It has been said
in very truth by the historian, Swinton,
that the private soldiers OF the confeder-
acy bore the war for four long years upon
the points Of their bayonets, and so may
it also be said that the locomotives bore