Identifier: daringsufferingh02pitt (find matches)
Title: Daring and suffering : a history of the great railroad adventure
Year: 1863 (1860s)
Authors: Pittenger, William, 1840-1904
Subjects: Chattanooga Railroad Expedition, 1862
Publisher: Philadelphia : J. W. Daughaday
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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how itwas to be done. I thought we would probablyhave to fight, and compel the conductor,train-hands, and passengers to get off. Wemight have done this, but it would have re-quired very quick work, for there were thensome ten thousand troops, mostly conscripts,camped there, and a guard was placed watchingthe train. But a far better plan was adopted. As soon as we arrived, the engineer, conduc-tor, and many of the passengers went over tothe eating-house. Now was our opportunity!Andrews, and one or two others, went forwardand examined the track, to see if everythingwas in readiness for a rapid start. Oh! what a thrilling moment was that! Ourhearts throbbed thick and fast with emotions wedared not manifest to those who were loafingindifferently around. In a minute, whichseemed an hour, Andrews came back, openedthe door, and said, very quietly and carelessly, Let us go, now, boys. Just as quietly andcarelessly we arose and followed him. Thepassengers who were lazily waiting for the train
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THE GREAT RAILROAD ADVENTURE. 59 to move on and carry them to their destination,saw nothing in the transaction to excite theirsuspicions. Leisurely we moved forward-reached the head of the train—then Andrews,Brown our engineer, and Knight, who alsocould run an engine, leaped on the locomotive ;Alfred Wilson took the top of the cars asbrakesman, and the remainder of us clamberedinto the foremost baggage car, which, with twoothers, had been previously uncoupled from thehinder part of the train. For one moment ofmost intense suspense all was still—then a pull—a jar—a clang—and we were flying away on ourperilous journey. There are times in the life of man whenwhole years of intensest enjoyment seem con-densed into a single moment. It was so withme then. I could comprehend the emotion ofColumbus, when he first beheld through thedim dawn of morning, the new found, but longdreamed-of shores of America, or the less inno-cent, but no less vivid joy of Cortez, when hefirst planted the

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