" He [Longstreet] premptorily ordered Vaughn to 'retire from Loudon at once' and join him north of the Holston. [35]

"Longstreet and Vaughn retreat from Knoxville.

"This time, Vaughn followed Longstreet's orders as well as he could. He destroyed the pontoon bridge that he had so carefully rebuilt. He gave away much of the army's food to the local civilians, but had to leave many rations to the Federals. His artillery horses were in such poor shape that he ordered his four field pieces dumped into the river. Captain Ruben Clark of the 59th Tennessee ran the trains, including three or four engines and scores of railway cars into the Tennessee River. When Union general Oliver O. Howard arrived with his corps on the morning of December 3, he reported that 'the rebel general Vaughn's command . . . had evacuated,' and that the main channel was 'completely filled with the rubbish of locomotives, cars, and their contents, which had been set on fire before being run into the river.'" [36]
[Gordon, Larry, The Last Confederate General, John C. Vaughn and his East Tennessee Cavalry, Zenith Press, 2009, pp. 80,1]

35 - OR Ser. 1, Vol. 31, Part 3, 779
36 - OR, Ser. i, Vol. 31, Part 2, 352; Augustus, Gerald R. The Loudon County Area

of East Tennessee in the War, Turner Publishing Co., 2000, 88-89;

Clark, Valley of the Shadow, 94

"General Thoma's [MGen. George Henry, USA] cavalry was moving on Athens, and I was ordered to retreat to Loudon [Tennessee], an engine and car having been sent down to carry us to that point. [Both Athens and Loudon are located south of Knoxville on what was the East Tennessee and Georgia Railway line, linking Knoxville with Chattanooga and Atlanta.] In getting up my men and their plunder, I was left [behind], with two of my men, the engineer being so badly frightened that he would not wait until I could get to the depot. We had to walk thirty miles, and avoid the road to keep from being captured. Arriving at Loudon, I was ordered to take my men and destroy five engines and trains by running them into the river. [13] Having an engineer furnished me, I accomplished the job, just in time to join the line of battle to meet the enemy, then coming into sight. [14] It was late, however, and but little fighting was done as the darkness closed inon us, and we withdrew, crossing the river on pontoon bridges to join General Longstreet at Knoxville [December 5, 1863]"
[Clark, Willene B., Valleys of the Shadow, The Memoir of Confederate Captain Reuben G. Clark, Company I, 59th Tennessee, U of Tenn., Press, 1994, pp. 28, 29]

13 - In Black, The Railroads of the Confederacy, only Federal destruction of trains

and roadbeds is described, but the Confederates also engaged in such

activities.

14 - OR I.31.1: 255

'I then moved [from Riceville] the cars to Athens . . .

"I moved what cars my engine could pull to Loudon . . . It was then decided not to run any more trains, but to leave Loudon the next morning in the direction of Knoxville.

"I was sent to take the names of the engines and numbers of cars at Loudon, as then were all to be run into the river the next evening. As well as I can remember, there were four engines and between sixty and a hundred cars--some loaded with corn meal, some with flour, some with meat, and some with one thing or another. Among them were the cars loaded with copper that I had brought away from Cleveland. Some of the cars were empty. The names of the engines that were run into the river at Loudon, as well as I can remember, were the Cherokee, Alleghany, and Hiiaswssee. [8]

"I know the Cumberland was the one I used last and made the last trip that it ever made to move Confederate troops. I remember that it was on Thursday evening that I took the names of the engines and numbers of cars. . . '

"I went to Gen. Vaughan [sic], and he gave me a permit to cross the river in a ferryboat, and started in the direction of Knoxville. It was on Friday evening that I left Loudon, and that was the evening that the engines and cars were to be run down the bank into the river, my old faithful Cumberland with the rest, and I did not want to see it, so I crossed the river."
[Ward, James A., ed., Southern Railroad Man, Conductor N. J. Bell's Recollections of the Civil War Era, Northern Illinois U. Press, 1994, p. 23-25]

8 - The Cherokee was built by Baldwin and shipped to the W&A in 1855. It, too, was a 4-4-0

and replaced and earlier 4-2-0 Baldwin product of the same name that had been built in

1844. Baldwin and Rogers each built engines named Alleghany before the war, but both

were for Northern roads, one to a 6' guage for the Erie Railroad and the other to 4'8"

guage for the Philadelphia & Reading. The P&R locomotive could have been converted to

5' guage or this Alleghany may have been built by Baldwin in 1844 for the Central Railroad

& Banking Company in Georgia. It was a light engine with a 4-2-0 wheel arrangement.

No matter what the size, the South could ill afford to lose any motive power during the war.

The president of the East Tennessee and Georgia Railroad, headquartered in Knoxville, Mr. Wallace's son Thomas Lyon Wallace, was Captain and A .C. S of the 43rd Tennessee Infantry, CSA. Young Wallace, then 21, entered Princeton University in 1860 with the class of 1862 but left in 1861 during his freshman, due to the impending conflict.