State

Major James W. Wilson He served as a Major during llie Civil War. was chief engineer on llie job of building llie railroad through the mountains and first chairman off the Railroad Commission. LET us lake a brief look at three Majors who саше out of Burke • County, all of whom rendered “some service" to Carolina. The first of the three was Major Alphonso C. Avery, who during the Civil War served upon the staff of his brother- in-law, Lieutenant General Daniel Harvey Hill, who lost three brothers in bnttle under the banner of the Stars and liars. After the war Major Avery became one of the most emi¬ nent of our western lawyers, and ho served many years first upon the bench of our Superior Court, and then as a member of our Supreme Court. My second Major is Samuel MeD. Tate of Morganton, u Major of the 26th North Carolina Regiment in the Confederate service. When its gallant Colonel, Isaac K. Avery, was killed, just before he died he scrawled on a scrap of paper: "Major Tate: Tell father that 1 died with my face to the enemy." After the war Major Tate saw service in legislative halls and then as State Treasurer. University Graduate My third Burke County Major is James W. Wilson, who took his Mas¬ ter's degree from the University in 1852 and became one of the most emi¬ nent engineers of the nation. Carolina has produced some great engineers — Daniel A. Tompkins, William S. Lee, Gilbert White, Wallace C. Riddick. Add to these the name of James W. Wilson. Before the Civil War the Western North Carolina Railroad was in course of construction between Salis¬ bury and Asheville, and Wilson served in its corps of civil engineers, his chief being Robert K. Bodes, who later became a Major General in the Army of Northern Virginia and whose divi¬ sion comprised a part of the famous ‘Toot cavalry” of Stonewall Jack- son. As a Captain, young Wilson was present at First Bull Run; he saw sen-ice in the Peninsular campaign and in the hard fighting of the Seven Days around Richmond. During the Chancellorsville and Gettysburg cam¬ paigns, Wilson served upon the staff By R. C. LAWRENCE of Carolina's Major General Stephen I). Ram sen r, who was killed at Cedar Crook. He saw the sanguinary fight¬ ing at Cold Harbor, at Spottsylvnnia, and in the Wilderness. Transportation In the Fall of 1864 the momentous question was not the valor of South¬ ern arms, but how could the armies of Lee bo fed and clothed? The prob¬ lem of transportation, always grave, became acute, and Major Wilson, as the ablest of our civil engineers, was detached from field service and was made Superintendent of the Western Railroad by Governor Vance. After the war was over. Major Wilson be¬ came the president of this railroad, and when the line (which was then owned by the state) was taken over as a part of the old Richmond and Dan¬ ville system (now the Southern) Major Wilson became its chief engineer. When the Carthagenian General Hannibal reached the foot of the Alps his mind did not dwell upon the hard¬ ships in store for his armies, but he exclaimed: “Beyond the Alps lies Italy!” Some such exclamation must have been in the mind of Major Wil¬ son. for upon him as Chief Engineer rested the mighty task of building a railroad from Old Fort across the Blue Ridge to Asheville. The Western was the first railroad to penetrate the heart of the Appalachian range south of the Roanoke River. Anyone who has ridden the South¬ ern Railway from Salisbury to Ashe¬ ville has marveled at the engineering skill which built a railroad through Jefferson Standard Life Insurance SALES over $1,000,000 a week these mighty hills; pierced their heart at Swannaiioa tunnel, and united the sparsely settled and little known West with the more populous and better known eastern portion of our state. So marvelous was the feat of engi¬ neering performed by Major Wilson that at one point near Round Knob you can see the railway at sixteen different places above you and below you, winding around and through the mountains with a snakelike trail. Major Wilson had to contend not only with the most rugged terrain south of the Potomac; he not only had to devise new methods in onginecrimr to construct the great tunnel which pierces the Continental Divide; but he hud to devise means for controlling “Mud Cut," where the very side- of the mountain had a most annoying habit of sliding down into the valley, taking a section of the railway with it. The inotintnine in the vicinity of the famous Culebra Cut had much the same habit of slipping into the Pana¬ ma Canal before they were controlled and made to stay put by Major Gen¬ eral George W. Goethak. First Chairman In the early '90's the farmers of Carolina were insistent in their de¬ mand for a Railroad Commission to regulate and control intrastate freight and passenger rates, telegraph folk and all public utility charges. The outstanding ability of Major Wilson was recognized in his appointment ns the fir-t Chairman of that Commis¬ sion in 1891, and upon him largely de¬ volved the rate-making program — a program carried on and developed with an ex|»crt technique under the Commission which Allen J. Maxwell served first as secretary then as a member. Such spare time as Major Wilson had he spent in serving his state in the legislature: he served as a member of the Executive Committee of our University and he was president of tlie W.-stern State Hospital at Mor- gantou. Carolina тччк three more Majors out of Burke ! 21