Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 84, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 June 1898 — A DISASTROUS WRECK. [ARTICLE]

A DISASTROUS WRECK.

Collision Between Trains Carrying Soldiers to the South—Foot Men Killed, Many Injured. Tupelo, Miss., June 27.—A railway accident occurred at this place at 3:40 Sunday afternoon, in which four soldiers lost their lives and others received fatal injuries. Everything was done to relieve the wounded by the local physicians and citizens who were soon upon the scene. Sunday afternoon, Col. Torres’s regiment of rough riders from Cheyenne, Wyo., reached this place via Kansas City, Memphis & Birmingham railroad. The first section had stopped to take water and had whistled to start on when the second section rounded the sharp curve in the track just before the town is reached and dashed into it. In the rear of the first section was the sleeper “Seville,” containing Col. Torrey and his regimental staff. This car was completely demolished, yet strange to say, every inmate escaped unscathed except the colonel, who is injured, though not seriously. The chief fatalities occurred in a coach which stood in the center of the first section, which carried troop C, from Laramie, Wyo. This coach was completely telescoped and the soldiers within were jammed and bruised beneath the masses of timber, 1 broken car seats and other debris. In the second section one baggage car was thrown into the ditch, but in this train' few were hurt and none dangerously, i Not a horse was injured, although several of the stock cars were badly smashed. The killed were: Willie B. Wallace, troop C; Sam Johnson, troop C; Gordan, colored porter; Cornelius Lenihan, troop C. Fatally injured: Henry S. \fopes, troop C, both legs cut off, puncture in abdomen. Thirteen others were injured. |