Union Civil War Locomotive Wreck

The Memorial Reads: ERECTED BY THE UNITED STATES TO MARK THE BURIAL PLACE OF FORTY-NINE CONFEDERATE SOLDIERS WHO WHILE PRISONERS OF WAR WERE KILLED IN A RAILROAD ACCIDENT NEAR SHOHOLA PENNSYLVANIA AND WHOSE REMAINS WERE THERE BURIED BUT SUBSEQUENTLY REMOVED TO THIS CEMETERY WHERE THE INDIVIDUAL GRAVES CANNOT NOW BE IDENTIFIED Elmira, Woodlawn National Cemetery Listing (Names listed with "S" stand for Shohola)

The Memorial Reads: ERECTED BY THE UNITED STATES TO THE MEMORY OF THE FOLLOWING SOLDIERS PRIVATES IN THE ELEVENTH VETERAN RESERVE CORPS COMPRISING THE UNION GUARD WHO WERE KILLED WITH THEIR CONFEDERATE PRISONERS OF WAR IN THE RAILROAD ACCIDENT NEAR SHOHOLA PA. JULY 15, 1864 WHOSE UNIDENTIFIED REMAINS TOGETHER WITH THOSE OF THE CONFEDERATE PRISONERS HAVE BEEN REMOVED TO THIS CEMETERY. (Names listed)

On July 15, 1864 a locomotive pulling 17 passenger and freight cars moved along the Erie Railroad lin southeast of New York state. Aboard were 833 Confederate prisoners of war and 128 Union guards. The guards were members of the 11th and 20th Regiments of the United States Veteran Reserve Corps under the command of Captain Morris L. Church. Most of the guards rode in the last three cars, others stood atop boxcars and inside the boxcars. The Confederates were the fourth bunch of prisoners to be sent from Point Lookout, Maryland, the Elmira, New York.

The locomotive Engine 171 moved along the tracks averaging 20 miles per hour. Engine 171 was classified as an "extra" indicating it ran behind a scheduled train. The scheduled train, West 23, displayed warning flags giving the right-of-way to Engine 171. However, Engine 171 was delayed in leaving Jersey City to Elmira while the guards located several missing prisoners and again waiting for a drawbridge. Engine 171 arrived at Port Jervis four hours behind schedule.

The next leg of the trip ran along a single track. This run of track contained sharp curves and ran along the Delaware River. Ahead at Lackawaxen was a junction with the Hawley Branch, a rail spur connection. At the junction station a telegraph operator Douglas "Duff" Kent was on duty. Kent saw the West 23 pass by during the morning with flags warning of a special "extra" following. Kent was responsible for holding all eastbound traffic at Lackawaxen until the "extra" had gone through. At approximately 2:30 P.M. a coal train Erie Engine 237 with 50 cars stop at Lackawaxen Junction. At the junction John Martin descended from his post in the caboose and entered Lackawaxen Station asking if the track clear to Shohola. His question was answered by Kent, indicating that the track was clear. With this mistake the two locomotives fates were sealed. Martin relayed the information to the Engineer Samuel Hoitt who manned the throttle. Hoitt sent G. M. Boyden the brakeman ahead to open the main switch. The Erie Engine 237 moved onto the mainline and headed east. At 2:45 Engine 171 passed Shohola heading west, only four miles of track between them remained.

Both trains meet at "King and Fuller's Cut". This section of track followed a blind curve where only 50 feet of forward visibility was possible. When the two trains meet only Engineer Hoitt had time to jump clear. When the two trains impacted the troop train's woodtender jolted forward and buckled upright throwing its load of firewood into the engine cab killing Tuttle instantly. Ingram was pinned against the split boilerplate and scalding steam, where he was reported slowly scalded to death in sight of all present. It was said the "With his last breath he warned away all who went near to try to aid him, declaring that there was danger of the boiler exploding and killing them." Inside the cab of Engine 237, Boyden and Pretiss also died in a crush of cordwood and stell. Hoitt and Martin survived.

In 1964, the 100th anniversary of the Shohola wreak, historian Joseph C. Boyd wrote: "...the wooden coaches telescoped into one another, some splitting open and strewing their human contents onto the berm...where flying glass, splintered wood, and jagged metal killed or injured them as they rolled. Other occupants w3ere hurled through windows or pitched to the track as the car floors buckled and opened. The two ruptured engine tenders towered over the wreckage, their massive floor timbers snapped like matchsticks. Driving rods were bent like wire. Wheels and axles lay broken."

The troop train's forward boxcar had been compacted and within the remaining mass were the remains fo 37 men. Even's saw "headless trunks...mangled between the telescoped cars" and "bodies impaled on iron rods and splintered beams." At least 51 Confederate prisoners and an official total of 17 Union guards died either on the spot or within a day of the wreak. Thirteen soldiers of the 51st North Carolina Infantry lost their lives in a few seconds.

Confederate corpses were laid in rows, the most hideously mangled among them were covered with grass and leaves. The Union dead were wrapped in blankets and set apart from the Confederate. Five Confederate prisoners escaped in the chaos before a cordon of Veteran Reserves could be deployed around the site.

Two relief trains were dispatched from Port Jervis by Erie Superintendent Hugh Riddle with railway workers and doctors. Over 100 badly hurt men were removed to Shohola and quartered in the railroad station or the Shohola Glen Hotel. Physicians worked through the night. North Carolina infantryman Albert G. Smith wrote to his wife, "I got heart [hurt] in comeing up hear by the cars runing together but I am not confined. We are fareing very well and are treated very kind, more so then I thought we would be."

Two Confederate soldiers, John and Michael Johnson, died overnight at Shohola. They were taken across the Delaware to a small congregational church in Barryville, New York, and buried there. In 1995 the graves were marked by single stone and a small wooden cross. The dead at King and Fuller's Cut continued to be buried throughout the night until the dawn of the 16th. Not all the bodies could be identified. Confederates were placed four at a time in crude boxes nailed together from the wreckage. The boxes were then lowered into a 75 foot long trench. Toward midnight conventional pine coffins arrived for the Union dead, who were laid in individual graves. By 9:00 A.M. on July 16 four more men had died and were taken to the common grave at King and Fuller's Cut. Within a week of the wreck all surviving prisoners were delivered to Elmira Prison. Church's official account, dated July 22, 1864, contains a final tally of 787 Confederates delivered to Elmira of the fourth contingent from Point Lookout.

An official inquest jury in Pike County was impaneled and found Kent negligent. However, Kent had left at 9:00 A.M. on the 16th and was never heard from again.

On June 11, 1911, the Shohola dead were disinterred and brought to Elmira's Woodlawn National Cemetery were they were laid in another common grave. Their names were inscribed on two bronze plaques affixed to a single stone monument. Names of the Union dead face the cemetery's northern lawn. The Confederate names face south. A completely satisfactory account of men killed in the collision is not available. Estimates range from 60 to 72, not including the two Johnsons from North Carolina who remain in the churchyard at Barryville. The five Confederates who are said to have escaped also can not be accounted for.

1. "The Great Locomotive Wreak", Civil War Times Illustrated, January/February 1995, by Jack Jackson.
2. "Civil War Prisons", Kent State University Press, edited by William B. Hesseltine.
3. "The Elmira Prison Camp", A History of the Military Prison at Elmira, N. Y. July 6, 1864 to July 10, 1865; By: Clay W. Holmes, A.M.; G.P. Putman's Sons New York and London, The Knickerbocker press 1912.