Platte Bridge Railroad Tragedy facts for kids
The Platte Bridge Railroad Tragedy was a surprise attack on a train during the American Civil War on September 3, 1861. This event happened when a train derailed on a bridge over the Platte River near St. Joseph, Missouri. Between 17 and 20 people died, and 100 were injured. The bridge was located in Buchanan County.
What Happened at Platte Bridge?
Confederate fighters, sometimes called "bushwhackers" or "partisans," planned this attack. They wanted to burn the lower wooden parts of the 160-foot bridge. Their goal was to make the top of the bridge look safe, even though it was weak.
At 11:15 p.m. on a very dark night, a passenger train was heading west from Hannibal, Missouri, to St. Joseph. As the train started to cross the bridge, the weakened supports broke. The locomotive (the engine part of the train) flipped over and fell 30 feet into the shallow river. It pulled the freight cars, baggage car, mail car, and two passenger cars down with it. About 100 men, women, and children were on board.
Who Was Involved?
After the tragedy, Union soldiers were ordered to find and punish the bushwhackers responsible.
Confederate Major General Sterling Price was leading troops in northern Missouri at the time. He wrote to the Union commanding general, Henry Wager Halleck. Price argued that destroying the bridge was a "lawful and proper" act of war. He believed the captured bushwhackers should be treated as prisoners of war.
General Halleck disagreed. He said the bushwhackers were "spies, marauders, robbers, incendiaries, guerrilla bands...in the garb of peaceful citizens." This meant he saw them as criminals, not regular soldiers.
The bushwhackers claimed the train was a military target. They said it carried soldiers going to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. One of the soldiers killed was Barclay Coppock, who was known for being part of John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry. The bushwhackers also claimed they wanted to assassinate former Missouri Governor Robert Marcellus Stewart.
Aftermath and Consequences
One of the main bushwhackers the Union troops looked for was Silas M. Gordon. Union troops burned Platte City, Missouri two times. This happened in December 1861 and July 1864. They did this to try and force the townspeople to give up Gordon, but they were not successful. This event is known as the Burning of Platte City.
At that time, the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad was the first railroad to cross the state of Missouri. It was very important for delivering mail, especially for the Pony Express which ended in St. Joseph. Col. Ulysses S. Grant, who later became a famous general and president, had his first Civil War job guarding these trains. In August 1861, he was promoted to brigadier general and given a new assignment.
