The morning was clear, with a warm sun just tempered by a breeze balmy and soft: the packet was crowded, and our passage across the harbour a pleasure to remember. We were soon, however, to have all the happy recollections of this journey miserably blotted out by one of the most fearful accidents I ever beheld.
At Amboy we took the railroad; and every one was delighted to find that the locomotives were now in operation, anticipating a quick and pleasant ride to Bordentown. For a time all went well: various surmises were made as to our rate; some calculated it at twenty miles in the hour; D——n and the Belgian minister, Baron de B——r, were disputing the point, watch in hand, when an alarm was given from the rear: our attention was quickly arrested by loud cries to "stop the engine," coming from the windows of every carriage in the train.
On the halt being accomplished, the carriages were deserted in a moment; for it was discovered that one of those in the rear had been overturned in consequence of the axle breaking,—its occupants' fate as yet unknown.
I was soon on the spot, and what a scene was here to witness! Out of twenty-four persons only one had escaped unhurt. One man was dead, another dying, and five others had fractures, more or less serious; a couple of ladies (sisters) dreadfully wounded; the children of one of them, two little girls, with broken limbs.
Never were sufferers more patient; one of them was a surgeon, a fine young fellow, who immediately set about doing the best his skill could accomplish for those most desperately hurt. D——n and I volunteered as his assistants; and with such splints as the shattered panels of the carriage supplied, the fractured limbs were bound up.
It was a melancholy task; but this gallant fellow stuck to it until he saw such of his patients as it was possible to remove disposed of in one of the baggage-cars, emptied for this purpose. I had, in the course of his task, frequently observed him pause, as though either faint, or finding some difficulty in the act of stooping, which was constantly required; but it was not until he had seen the last of his fellow-sufferers disposed of to his best ability that he examined his own condition, when it was discovered that two of his ribs were broken.
It was full three hours before the wounded could be removed from the sandy bank on which they had been stretched; and it was an afflicting thing to see them lying here, bloody and disfigured, exposed to the glare of a hot sun, without the possibility of procuring them shelter; for we were some miles from the nearest village when the accident occurred.
The ex-president, Mr. Quincy Adams, was in the carriage immediately attached to the one overturned: by his direction an inquest was held upon the deceased before we departed; and, this being concluded, the train once more moved forward, but with a character mournfully altered since our first departure.
We found the steam-boat yet in waiting at Bordentown; and, bearing with us those of the wounded who could proceed so far, we reached Philadelphia at a late hour in the afternoon, with such a freight as I trust may never again visit its wharves.
Saturday.—Called to inquire after such of our wounded fellow-passengers as we could trace. The lady so severely hurt pronounced out of all danger; and her dear baby still living, with hopes of saving it. A man with numerous fractures, who had been left behind, report says, is relieved by death from all farther suffering.