The Great Train Wreck of Sunday, September 1863 - CAPTAIN MATTHEW T. MARTIN
MATTHEW T. MARTIN MY 3RD GREAT GRANDFATHER Killed in this train wreck. Emerson’s Forgotten Train Wreck The Midnight Collision of the Chiefton and Senator By Joe F. Head The Great Train Wreck of Sunday, September 1863, may be more of Emerson’s exclusive claim to Civil War railroad fame than the celebrated 1862, Great Locomotive Chase that once raced through the old iron ore mining community. Emerson was originally a wood stop along the Western and Atlantic road known as Stegall Station. It was initially a single boxcar depot named for Emsly Stegall a wealthy landowner, but later renamed for the Civil War Governor, Joseph Emerson Brown. The northbound Senator, engine number 41, was transporting fresh confederate troops to Chickamauga, while the southbound Chiefton number 42 was evacuating wounded from the northern battlefields. In the haste of warring activities these two peacetime locomotives were pressed into evening service, but only to become silent victims of a fatal collision a