Cotton Railroad Through Mississippi. Civil War. Casey Jones. Slave Railroaders

Description

Cotton Railroad Through Mississippi: Civil War. Reconstruction. Slave Railroaders. Casey Jones. Yellow Fever. Railroads. Mississippi History. Holly Springs. Water Valley. Grenada. Grand Junction. Ole Miss
. Condition is "New". Shipped with USPS Media Mail.
T
his new book,
Cotton RailroadThrough Mississippi: The Mississippi Central and the Illinois Central
, by Milton Winter, is the first full-scale, authoritative history of a key link in America’s transportation network from the years just before the Civil War until the 21
st
century. At 125 pages, with 550 reference notes, it is both detailed and readable.
The line was begun in the 1850s by Holly Springs investors including H. W. Walter and Walter Good­man, joined by others in the towns of Bolivar, TN, Oxford, and Vaiden, and Canton, MS. It eventually extended to Cairo, IL and New Orleans and be­came part of the massive Illinois Central System that tied the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. Much of the Mississippi Central’s trackage was built by slave labor, and this sad chapter in African American history is explored in depth here for the first time. Blackmen also were firemen on the locomo­tives—a small but significant step away from labor in the cotton fields.
In its early years, the Mississippi Central brought wealth to its owners. But because of its strategic routing it became one of the most fought over locations in theCivil War. The book includes much never-before-published Civil War material, in­clud­ing a detailed study of the succes­sion of skirmishes over the Tall­a­hatchie River Bridge—a structure that was burned and rebuilt several times by the soldiers. Also part of the war story is the brief but interesting tenure of a young Thomas Edison (before he was famous as an inventor) as a telegrapher at the depot in Grand Junction, TN.
There is a chapter telling how the line delivered refugees (and likely also infection) during the 1878 yellow fever, followed by a section on Water Valley, a true railroad town where the com­pany shops were located.
Win­ter tells the story of Casey Jones’ historic wreck at Vaughan, MS and how the famous engineer began his career on the old Mississippi Cen­t­ral tracks through Jackson, TN and Holly Springs, with his dis­tinc­tive“Whippoorwill” train whistle, that made him well known locally before thefateful crash at Vaughan, MS on April 30, 1900.
Of interest to literary buffs, Winter explains how the line fascinated William Faulkner (whose grand­father was an intrepid railroad builder at nearby Ripley, MS) and how the Illinois Central line through Oxford and Holly Springs is depicted in many of his stories, its tracks “re-laid” in Faulkner’s fictional Yoknapataw­pha County. A final chapter narrates the story of the Oxford, MS depot, dear to the hearts of many Ole Miss alumni.The story of the southern portion of the line below Grenada which was incorporated into the IC mainline via Memphis after 1897 is recorded, along with the present status and operations of the remaining trackage in the two remaining Grand Junction-Oxford and Grenada-Canton segments. With 87 illustrations, the book is now available for purchase.
Robert Milton Winter is a native of Cleveland, MS and resided in Holly Springs, MS for 28 years, where he was pastor of the Holly Springs Presbyterian Church. It was in Holly Springs that he became acquainted with the beautiful old train depot and hotel, the grandest railroad structure ever built in Mississippi. The author of many books and articles on Mississippi history, he holds a Ph.D. in American history and is a regular contributor to
The Green Dia­mond
,the Historical Magazine of the Illinois Central Railroad Historical Society.
Layout and design for the book was contributed by the Rev. David S. Price, a retired United Methodist minister in Hattiesburg, MS, who has spent a lifetime as a collector of vintage railroad photographs. He is skilled in graphic design and volunteers as the layout and design specialist for the
Green Diamond
magazine.
Theprint run is limited. Do not delay if you wish to obtain a copy
.
Retail price:.95—Pre-publication discount through Dec. 15: .95, plus s/h.
Copies to museums and libraries, "make-an-offer" .95 each, plus s/h.
“
A great stocking-stuffer for your family’s railroad buff
”