Chunky Creek train accident

The Southern Rail Road Company was chartered in 1850. The line was named the Southern Rail Road. The line is sometimes referred to as the "Mississippi Southern" or "Southern Mississippi." In 1861, the Southern Rail Road ran 145 miles from Vicksburg to Meridian. It intersected with the New Orleans, Jackson & Greater Northern Rail Road at Jackson and with the Mobile & Ohio Rail Road at Meridian. The Southern Rail Road was built in a wide gauge at 5 feet apart. The Southern Rail Road had a reputation of being the worst maintained railroad in the country. The Daily Southern Crisis, a Jackson newspaper, claimed that accidents were almost a daily occurrence on the line. The engine was named the Hercules. It likely had one tender and four cars attached. The Hercules was an American 4-4-0 type. Before the War, the Hercules was based out of New Orleans until April 1862. Isaiah P. Beauchamp, the engineer, was living in New Orleans in 1860. In some modern accounts, the Hercules has been mislabeled as the "Mississippi Southern." A telegraphic dispatch was reported the day of the crash. Joseph M. Booker sent the message to Charles Storrow Williams, superintendent of the Southern Rail Road. The telegraph mentions the name of the engine, To C.S. WILLIAMS: MERIDIAN, Feb. 19.—The telegraphic repairer from Newton to-day, reports the railroad badly washed between Newton and Hickory. The engine Hercules, which left here with a freight train at 4 o’clock this morning, ran into the river near the Chunkey. The engineer, fireman and a large number of the passengers are supposed to be drowned. Eight bodies have been recovered. The engine and four cars are out of sight in the water.|J.M. Booker == Accident ==

The locomotive Hercules was totally submerged with the attached wooden boxcars demolished. The cargo debris of barrels, boxes, and supplies could be found floating in the winter cold stream. About 75 of nearly one-hundred passengers were killed because of the high speed impact but others drowned after being trapped under the wreckage. The Athens Post, an Athens, Tennessee newspaper; reported the following, A man just in from Chunkey says the engine and five cars are under water.—The conductor is hurt, but swam out.—The engineer has not been heard from. Between twenty-five and fifty persons are supposed to be lost—mostly soldiers, who broke open every car in the train and got in there before leaving here. The third and fifth cars had only troops and one horse—about seventy men in the two. The engineer was forward on the engine looking out, and the conductor was on the engine. Spann continued in his magazine article, The cry reached the camp. "Fly to the rescue!" was the command, and in less time than I can tell the story every Indian was at the scene. It was there that Jack Amos again displayed his courage and devotion to the Confederate soldiers. I must not omit to say, however, that with a like valor and zeal Elder [Jackson], another full-blood Indian soldier, proved equal to the emergency. Jack Amos and Elder [Jackson] both reside now in Newton County.[Jackson] is now an ordained Baptist minister, having been a gospel student under the venerable and beloved Rev. Dr. N. L. Clark, now living at Decatur, Newton County, and father of our Dr. Clark, of Meridian. Led by these two dauntless braves, every Indian present stripped and plunged into the raging river to the rescue of the drowning soldiers. Ninety-six bodies were brought out upon a prominent strip of land above the water line. Twenty-two were resuscitated and returned to their commands, and all the balance were crudely interred upon the railroad right of way, where they now lie in full view of the passing train, except nine, who were afterwards disinterred by kind friends and given a more honorable burial. A prominent local citizen survived the crash. Willis R. Norman lived near Hickory Station, Mississippi. Norman was in the car closest to the engine. He managed to swim to safety even though he was badly injured. The Daily Southern Crisis reported Norman's condition, At the house of Mr. Temples, about a mile from the bridge, are several wounded men, amongst whom is Mr. W. R. Norman, an aged and very intelligent and prominent gentleman, who resides near [Hickory] station. He fully corroborates the statement of the other passengers in regard to the care and caution used by the conductor, before reaching the last Chunky bridge, at which time, he says, they were running faster than at any previous. When the train ran off the track, he was in the car nearest the engine, and he thinks that not more than three escaped out of that car. He went to the bottom, in about fifteen feet of water, but rose to the surface with the fragments of the broken car, and with great difficulty succeeded in getting to the shore. His collar-bone is broken, his leg badly hurt, and he is injured internally, but will recover. About a year before the wreck and in a "twist of fate," Norman was one of many Newton County citizens who petitioned the Choctaw Indians to serve in the Civil War. == Aftermath ==

For a number of days after the wreck, bodies and cargo were being recovered from the creek. Many of the bodies were interred along the railroad right-of-way and/or on Absalom F. Temple's farm. Isaiah P. Beauchamp's body was recovered and sent to his residence at Forest, Mississippi. The Confederate passport system assisted in identifying possible spies, deserters, or conscripts. Passports were originally for slave identification, and many whites were offended when they were required to have passports during the War. In 2015 & 2016, historian & writer Robert Bruce Ferguson investigated the presumed wreckage area. He took a number of digital photographs for in-depth study and analysis. Commemoration U.C.V. Camp Dabney H. Maury attempted to place a memorial at the site of the wreck. A New Orleans newspaper wrote, "a lasting monument should be erected upon that lone burial spot that will serve to perpetuate alike the death of the Southern martyrs and the dauntless courage and fraternal heroism of the Choctaws." For unknown reasons, the monument was never placed. A small historical marker was placed at the scene of the accident on February 19, 2005. == See also ==