SHOCKING- CALAMITY IN AMERICA.

Southland Times, Volume I, Issue 42, 6 September 1864, Page 3

SHOCKING- CALAMITY IN AMERICA.

ACCIDENTAL EXPLOSION OF FOUR MONSTEE, TORPEDOES NEAR NEWBERN (N. C.) (Correspondence of the New Yorie Herald.) Outposts, Camp Classex, Bachelor's Creek (N. C.), May 27, 1864. At four o'clock yesterday afternoon, on the arrival of the train . at this station from Newbern, a terrible explosion attended the removal of four torpedoes from the cars to the platform. Forty-odd soldiers and negroes were blown into eternity in an instant, while between twenty and thirty persons, white and black, were wounded and mangled in a manner frightful to behold. The train, which left Newbern at three o'clock in the afternoon, brought to the outposts the remaining four of thirteen torpedoes, of monstrous weight and proportions, intended to complete the blockade of the Neuse River in the direction of Kinston. The last of the four was about reaching the station platform when an accidental blow, from a 102 of wood striking upon the cap, exploded the torpedo. The concussion was co great that the other three followed on the explosion of the first, and so quick as to make but one mighty report, like the crash of a thousand pieces of artillery fired simultaneously. The disaster was one of the most appalling and heart-rending that has happened in this country in a series of years. Soldiers, whose gallantry has been displayed on battle fields, and whose eagerness to hear the news from their brave comrades in Virginia had brought them clustering around the station, were hurled, mangled and torn into eternity in a moment's tii&e. Heads, bodies, and limbs were scattered for a quarter of a mile around, and in many instances it was found impossible to recognise the remains of the unfortunate victims. The signal tower and a commissary building, twenty teet by eighty feet, built of logs, were thrown into the air a distance of eight hundred feet, and strewed the country for a great distance around with the fragments . The greatest sufferer by this terrible catastrophe was the One Hundred and Thirty-second New York, stationed for the last twelve months on this front, and whose camp is adjacent to the railroad station. For the information of the friends and relatives of the killed and wounded, whoso homes are mostly in New York and Brooklyn, the following list of casualties is given, and can be depended upon as correct. [The names of thirty-one killed and seventeen wounded are here given.] The killed and wounded of the contrabands will number between twenty and twenty- five. This sad accident, entailing such fearful consequences, has cast a gloom over the soldiers of the outposts, which will require a long time for them fully to overcome. A number of the One Hundred and Thirty-second New York are badly mangled, and will probably die. Everything, however, that care and skill can accomplish will be done to save life, and ease the suffering of the unfortunate soldiers.