Louisiana & Alabama Hurricane, Sept - Oct 1860 - Eyewitness Account

The Daily Picayune, Friday Morning Edition, October 5, 1860

Disaster on the Jackson Railroad We are indebted to Mr. A. W. Rountree, U. S. mail agent on the N. O., Jackson and G. N. Railroad, who was on the train whose critical condition we mentioned yesterday, for the following graphic and interesting statement of the trials and sufferings experienced by the passengers, about whose fate so much anxiety had existed for the last three days:

On the evening of the 1st October, the mail train south, on the New Orleans, Jackson and Great Northern Railroad, with a large mail and about 250 passengers, was detained some three hours at Canton, Miss., by a car that was off the track at the switch just below the depot.

We started from Canton about midnight, and went to Jackson, where we left about one hundred persons, and proceeded on with the balance. When we got to Pass Manchac, the train stopped on the side track, and waited for the up train from New Orleans, which was then due at Manchac. After waiting about thirty minutes, we started south, and had got about six miles, when we met the up train, which had been detained by the water on the track. Our train backed up to Pass Manchac, to let them get by, and then we started once more for New Orleans. We were informed by the officers of the up train, that we could get through, but that we would have a right tight time of it, as the track was under water in a great many places.

After getting about five miles, we found that the water had risen since we had left and was still rising. We pushed on, hoping to get through, but after going a mile more we cane to a dead halt, and could get no further, as the track was afloat and washed up ahead of us. We were then at Bayou Desert, within 150 yards if the Lake shore and could see the waves rolling in from the Lake. The water around us was about seven feet deep and covered with large logs, which were driven by the waves with such force against the track as to break and wash it off all around us. The water was nearly up to the bottom of the cars, and large logs, two feet in diameter, were forced in between the cars and the track. We were anchored by the locomotive, which held us fast, the weight of the train alone preserving that portion of the track on which we stood.

In this dreadful position we remained, contemplating a scene of most awful grandeur. Above and around us the tempest roared with ceaseless fury, torrents of rain continually falling on the motionless train, with a violence increased by the force of a fierce wind. The dreary sheet of water surrounding us was covered with fallen timber and pieces of wreck forced up by the angry waves which came incessantly from the lake, making the water rise higher and higher around us to our imminent peril. Among this floating timber we could see the cattle struggling to resist the waves and keep their heads above water. A thing that many of the poor animals could not succeed in doing, and were washed away. We could see, but without being able to go to her relief, an old negro woman, nearly 70 years old, floating on top of a hay stack. She disappeared in the darkness, and it was only next morning that we could ascertain her fate. She had got to the old embankment and clung to a piece of the wreck. She was saved and remained with the men at the camp.

The scene on the cars was certainly an exciting one. We were in what can be called a “bad fix” – thirty miles from New Orleans, in the midst of a cypress swamp, surrounded by brackish water, with nothing to eat, and only about half a barrel of water for one hundred and fifty persons. The whole forenoon had passed; it was now past 1 o’clock, P.M., and we had nothing to eat since the day before, at dinner. One gentleman among us had the good fortune to have a basket of provisions with him. He was traveling with four orphan children under his care, and the provisions were for their use; this he generously divided amongst all – the ladies and children being, of course, first provided with the scanty ration.

Continued