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This website is dedicated to the
17 casualties of war in the train wreck that occurred on November 4, 1862 at
Cleveland, Tennessee.
Eye Witness Account
transcribed from
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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We were delayed about twenty four
hours, then we rode in a coal car to Chattanooga where we drew crackers and
bacon."
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In another part of his document,
Pvt. Wheeler wrote:
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"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."
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He also wrote:
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"Captain Ruben J. Cooper of
Daleville killed in a railroad wreck near Cleveland, Tenn. November 1862."
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In a newspaper reprint of the
entries in the diary of Myra Inmans in November 1862 it shows:
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"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."
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