Mississippi Central Railroad

Mississippi Central Railroad. Stop 5 Van Dorn Raid:. The railroad came to Holly Springs in 1856 at the urging of Harvey W. Walter, a Holly Springs attorney. The town, located on the main route between New Orleans, Chicago, and New York, was halfway between New Orleans and St. Louis and boasted one of the most spacious depots on the entire line. , On December 20, 1862, Griffith's Texas troopers galloped through the Federal infantry camp east of the railroad, raced to the depot, and continued west on Depot Street (now Van Dorn Avenue) to the Union infantry camp at the Town Square. That night, after the Confederates had left Holly Springs, the Union commander, Colonel Robert C. Murphy, reported that he had ordered his scattered forces to report to the depot. He wrote that he was preparing to barricade the depot with cotton bales and that he had "two trains nearly ready to move." Suddenly, the Texans "came dashing into the railroad depot and on my infantry camp.... In attempting to escape by the rear of the depot building in order to join my infantry forces I was captured by a company of cavalry. I was taken to the rear.... My fate is most mortifying. I have wished a hundred times today that I had been killed.", Van Dorn's men set fire to the warehouses, armory, machine shops, octagonal roundhouse, and the depot. They emptied the boxcars, burned their contents, and tore up the railroad tracks. , In 1865 the Mississippi Central rebuilt the front of the partially destroyed depot and, in 1886, remodeled the building to include 20 bedrooms and a 125-seat dining room., Donated to the People of the United States by Dr. and Mrs. Bill Rogers of Texas., Photo captions , Left:Mississippi Central Railroad Depot (Harper's Weekly, January 10, 1863) , Right: Downtown Holly Springs