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Civil War Blog

A project of PA Historian

The Great Shohola Train Wreck – Moving the Remains from Shohola to Elmira in 1911

In 1911, the United States Government approved the removal of the bodies of the soldiers and prisoners from the site where they had been buried near King and Fuller’s Cut in Shohola Township, Pike County, Pennsylvania, to the Woodlawn National Cemetery at Elmira, New York.  A vacant space was located in the cemetery and a […]

The Great Shohola Train Wreck – Two Elusive Participants

In researching the participants involved in the Great Shohola Train Wreck, the one individual who supposedly allowed the coal train to enter the main line at Lackawaxen and the other individual who supposedly was a member of the Union guard on the prisoner train, have been very difficult to locate in records not associated with […]

The Great Shohola Train Wreck – The Strange Coincidence of the Death of the Erie President

While it may have had nothing to do at all with the Great Shohola Train Wreck, three days after the accident, the President of the Erie Railroad died.  The following was reported in Between the Ocean and the Lakes, on page 138: Nathaniel Marsh died 18 July 1864.  His death came suddenly, although he had […]

The Great Shohola Train Wreck – As Told in the History of the Erie

Today’s post is another installment of a series on the Great Shohola Train Wreck. On 15 July 1864, at about 2 P.M., a train carrying 833 Confederate prisoners of war and a contingent of Union guards, collided head-on with a 50-car coal train on a single-track main line of the New York and Erie Railroad.  […]

The Great Shohola Train Wreck – The Geographic Context

The question of the importance of the location that Elmira, Chemung County, New York, had to the Union war effort can best be answered by examining a regional map from the time period.  The above map is adapted from an 1868 railroad map and shows the major points of interest to a study of the […]