39°43′31″N
94°42′21″W
/
39.7253°N 94.7059°W
/
39.7253; -94.7059
The
Platte Bridge Railroad Tragedy
was a
bushwhacker
attack on the
Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad
during the
American Civil War
on September 3, 1861, in which the train derailed on a bridge over the
Platte River
east of
St. Joseph, Missouri
, killing between 17 and 20 and injuring 100. The bridge crosses the river in
Buchanan County
, between
Marion Township
on the east, and
Washington Township
on the west.
Confederate
partisans
planned to burn the lower timbers of the 160-foot (49 m) bridge across the river, leaving the top looking intact. At 11:15 p.m. on a moonless night, the westbound passenger train from
Hannibal, Missouri
, to St. Joseph started to cross the bridge. The supports cracked and gave way. The
locomotive
flipped, falling 30 feet (9.1 m) into the shallow river and bringing with it the freight cars,
baggage car
, mail car and two
passenger cars
with 100 men, women and children. Bodies and the injured were taken to the
Patee House
near the St. Joseph depot.
Union
soldiers were ordered to track down and execute bushwhackers for their part in the incident.
Confederate
Major General
Sterling Price
, who had been invading northern Missouri at the time, wrote Union commanding general
Henry Wager Halleck
to protest, stating the sabotage was "lawful and proper" according to the rules of warfare and that the captured men should be treated as prisoners of war. Halleck replied that the bushwhackers were "spies, marauders, robbers, incendiaries, guerrilla bands...in the garb of peaceful citizens". The bushwhackers were also to say that the train was a military target because there were soldiers on it bound for
Fort Leavenworth, Kansas
. One of the soldiers killed was
Barclay Coppock
, a member of John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry. The bushwackers were also to claim that it was an attempt to assassinate former
Missouri Governor
Robert Marcellus Stewart
.
The most prominent of the bushwhackers sought by the Federal troops was
Silas M. Gordon
. Union troops were to burn
Platte City, Missouri
twice (in December 1861 and July 1864) in unsuccessful attempts to force the townspeople to surrender him (see the
Burning of Platte City
).
The railroad at the time was the first to cross the state of Missouri and it was used to deliver mail to and from the
Pony Express
terminus in St. Joseph, Missouri.
Col.
Ulysses S. Grant
's first commission in the Civil War had been guarding the trains. In August he was promoted to
brigadier general
on a new assignment.
References
[
edit
]
- Filbert, Preston.
The Half Not Told: The Civil War in a Frontier Town
.
ISBN
0-8117-1536-1
.
- ^
photo from:
Aurner, Clarence Ray (1910).
A topical history of Cedar County, Iowa
. Vol. 1. S.J. Clarke Publishing Company.
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Origins
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Combatants
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Campaigns
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Battles
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Involvement
(by city or town)
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Leaders
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Aftermath
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memorials
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Cemeteries
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Related topics
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Railway accidents in 1861
(
1861
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Location and date
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