33rd
alabama volunteers
transcribed from
ALABAMA CONFEDERATE, January, 1988:
ALABAMA CONFEDERATE, January, 1988:
|
THE TRAIN WRECK |
| The information pertaining to the train wreck near Cleveland, Tennessee, on or about 4 November 1862 was copied from the memoirs of Pvt. Marvin L. Wheeler, Company A, 33rd Alabama Infantry Regiment. Pvt. Wheeler enlisted July 1862 at Stevenson, Alabama. He was wounded at Chickamauga. The following is Pvt. Wheeler's story. |
A TRUE COPY
"It was then the ladder part of October and first
of November. Climatic conditions caused Knoxville to be the smokest
place we were at, the smok from our green oak wood fires did not rise
but settled and remained in a heavy black bank just above the earth
and kept our eyes running water nearly all the time that we were not
laying down, it being less dense just next to the earth, and we wer
glad to leave there one morning early in November in box cars, a company
in a car, with three days cooked rations of flour bread, fresh beef
and bacon. The engines could pull but ten loaded box cars, say twenty
four to thirty six feet long. The 33rd moved in the cars, that time
by the left flank, the regimental staff officers or those who were
along at the time and part of the baggage, the cooking utensils, axes
and medicine chest, occupying the rear or tenth box and this time
it fell to the lot of Company D, thought its place was not on the
extreem tright of the battalion, to occupy a box in the second section
or train to our rear, the engine of which train frequently pushed
our train up the grains when we stalled, as it did up the grade two
or three miles south of Cleveland. And while running fast down grade
our trained was wrecked about one or two p.m. the day we left Knoxville,
south of Cleveland, killing nine or ten of Company G, one or two of
Company E and of Company F and of Company H. Seventeen in all, whom
we buried the next morning in a long ditch we dug on the southeast
side of the railroad track, and built a worn rail fence around them.
We pad put sixty seven crippled ones in box cars and sent them back
to the hospital at Cleveland the evening of the wreck, soon after
getting them out of it.
Company
B was in the box car next to the tender which was heaping full of
split wood and it was supposed that a stick of wood dropped off the
tender breaking the front axle under our car. At any rate all the
wheels suddenling came out from under our car, causing a dreadful
jar and clogged under the second car, which Company G Cooper's Co.
from Daleville were in. Many were riding on top of the cars as was
usual when moving by rail, and were shuck off like shaking peaches
off a tree and badly jolted when they hit the ground. The coupling
Company B's and Company G's boxes parted and the primitive engine
carried Company B's box bouncing along without any wheels under it
for two or three hundred yards, and it was the roughest riding we
ever experienced. Those of Company B in the front end of the box got
out at the doors on either side, some of the alighting on their heads.
The
company guns, accountrements, knapsacks and things soon all worked
back to the rear end of the box in bouncing along would strike the
rails it would us men and things a foot or more from the floor then
when the floor would come in contact with us some would be beneath
the pile and get bruised and mashed and were all banged up and badly
frightened when the old fashioned engine stopped and after gettin
out and find we had no broken bones we hurried back to where the cars
were piled up in and on top of each other and assisted while men pried
up or chopped to pieces the boxes in getting the crippled or dead
out.
We
were delayed about twenty four hours, then we rode in a coal car to
Chattanooga where we drew crackers and bacon."
In another part
of his document, Pvt. Wheeler wrote:
"Brevet Second Lieutenant
Charles Scott was in charge of Company E at Knoxville and was killed
in the railroad wreck near Cleveland, Tenn. Nov. 1862."
He also
wrote:
"Captain Ruben J. Cooper of Daleville killed in a railroad
wreck near Cleveland, Tenn. November 1862."
In a newspaper reprint
of the entries in the diary of Myra Inmans in November 1862 it shows:
"Wednesday,
5: cloudy day, rained a little this morning. A gloom was spread over
our town this morn. Caused by a sad accident which occurred 16 miles
from here. The cable of a car broke, which caused 18 men to lose their
lives, while 70 were wounded. There brought to the hospitals."
©1999-2004, Mildred Stinson Brown
