Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 June 1894 — Close Call for Turner. [ARTICLE]

Close Call for Turner.

S. S. Turner, who has been elected to the House of Representatives in the Seventh Congressional District of Virginia to succeed Gov. O’Ferrall, had once an escape from death little short of the marvelous. He was a Confederate soldier and after the evacuation of Richmond, with four other men, climbed Into a boxcar to sleep. The car had been used to transport powder and every crevice in the floor was tilled with the powder dust. In the morning one of the men, after lighting his pipe, threw the burning end of the match he had used on the floor. Instantly there was an explosion which killed all but Mr. Turner. He was terribly injured and lay for weeks in altruist mortal agony, for opium or other narcotics were not to be had. He recovered finally, but bears still the marks of the accident. Of the torture he endured he cannot even at this day be Induced to speak.