Rensselaer Union, Volume 1, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 November 1868 — Capture of a Railroad Train by the Indians. [ARTICLE]

Capture of a Railroad Train by the Indians.

From the Omaha Republican of the 3d, we obtain particulars of the capture of a railroad train, on the Union Pacific Railroad, previously reported by telegraph: We have received intelligence that confirms the report of the capture of a freight train, on the Union Pacific Railroad, last Saturday morning. Instead of being at Grand Island, however, it was a mile or two west of Alkali Station. The Indians effected the capture of the train by cutting the ties in the center, and thus spreading the rails, so that when it came along, about two o'clock in the morning of the day stated, it was piled up together, and made a perfect wreck. In the disaster the fireman was killed, he being jammed in between the locomotive and the tender, where for three hours he suffered the horrible torture of scalding, when death came to his relief. All the men of the train fled when the disaster occurred, to escape from the Indians, but the engineer, who remained with his fireman and did everything in his power to release the poor fellow from his horrible situation. But his unaided efforts could accomplish nothing. While suffering these tortures the fireman begged the engineer to kill him, but the latter could not find it in his heart to take a human life.

The Indians then burned the railroad bridge near by, for the apparent purpose of destroying the passenger train that was seen to follow the freight train already destroyed. But Mr. Nichols, the division superintendent, had come down to the wreck from Alkali, with a locomotive. He started on the return, and then discovered that the Indians had got between him and the station, and were endeavoring to blockade the track. He and a trusty Spencer rifle with him, and with that fought the Indians off, and got back to the station. He immediately telegraphed west to the coming passenger train and stopped it. Thus it and its precious freight of human lives were saved from a horrible death. Mr. Nichols is deserving of great praise for the promptness and courage with which he acted in the case. Mr. Nichols also telegraphed to Fort Sedgwick for troops, and a company of Pawnee scouts and a battalion of cavalry under Major Hughes were dispatched to the place; but when they arrived the hostile Indians were all gone. Mr. N. says that when he arrived at the scene of the disaster there about a hundred Indians congregated on an adjacent hill aronnd a bonfire. Very quickly after he saw similar bonfires lighted successively, as signal lights, on the distant hills, around each of which he could see bands of Indians. He calculates that their whole force amounted to 1,000 warriors. Those Indians were Sioux and Cheyennes. -----

Crime and Suffering in Russia. —A letter from Russia in the Presse of Vienna gives a melancholy picture of the present condition of that country. The harvest, he says, is insufficient for the wants of the population, and incendiary fires and thefts are of constant occurence. The thefts are generally ascribed to the officials and several of them have been dismissed in consequence. At Nijni-NoVgoroil forged fiftyrouble notes have been circulated hi such quantities that sevi ral merchants have sustained copHidornble losses. Strange to say, a grcfttTiuihber of these forged notes lmve been found ia tlio Government chests. Arfortlte flrcß, miwt cTThinn are notorioosly the work <if J,«iocndanxeß, and in a great many cases secret proclamations have been circnlatcdas in 1862, nniionnCin({ the day on wfiifh a fife is tojUfke jilace-—' -vru* slrevel ami h*m»ier work* pf Br«>Wn, 1 Sherman A Wxshiiigtim, in JtWdlobora, Mass., wore destroyed by Iha Bntiirday morn teg. Loss heavy; in*nrancc»U!o,iyup. -rThc L aiiHona sugar this year is of ex-’ ' eollont quality.