Excerpts from an article by Willis Glassgow appearing in the Florence Morning
News, Sunday, 9 August 1998.

"...When the area was no more than pine trees and swamp land, a man by the
name of Gen.William Wallace Harllee helped build the first of three railroad
lines that would meet in the town we call Florence. Without the railroads
there probably would be no Florence."
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"...the first line chartered into the area was the Wilmington and
Manchester..."
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"...Two other rail companies soon recieved charters to construct lines, the
Cheraw and Darlington in 1849, and the North Eastern Railroad in 1851. The
intersection of these three lines would become the city of Florence."
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"The old general himself [Gen. Harllee]  then proposed the name of his young
daughter, Florence Henning Harrlee...The proposal was accepted, and the new
railroad station was named Florence."
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"Construciton of the W & M Railroad began in 1848 and landowners were asked to
enter a contract by which slaves on their plantations would be the main labor
force for the clearing and grading to make way for the tracks. Slave owners
would then be paid with stock in the railroad. The W & M was completed in
1852, the C & D in 1855 and the NE in 1860. Florence now had three railroads,
and the rail business wabooming. War loomed on the horizon, a development that
would crpple all of the fairlroads.

Florence side-stepped the destruction of the Civil War visited upon other
locales. Fittingly, the railroad played a role in the only battle fought here.
Troops serving under Union Gen. William T. Sherman traveled from Cheraw to
destroy the Florence railroad depot. Near the railroad crossing on Ebenezer
Road, the union troops were spotted by a Confederate train conductor. He
slammed the train into reverse, and headed back to Florence to warn of the
impending attack. The stage was set for 'The Skirmish at Gambles Hotel.'

In the battle, Confederate troops fought off the Union invaders and Florence
was spared from destruction.

Even though Florence was preserved, its railroads were not. Sherman's army
destroyed railroad equipment that had been taken to Cheraw to be saved. Also,
hundreds of miles of track around the city of Florence were torn up , heated
and wrapped around trees to form the famous 'Sherman neck ties.'

The railroads that took nine years to build were destroyed in three days.
Confederate Gen. P. G. T. Beauregard ordered the railroad trestle over the
Great Pee Dee River burned to prevent its capture by Union troops..." 

[Hope this will be of interest.
URQ]

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