CWL---First Railroad Built Specifically For Warfare

From Railroads of the Civil War: An Illustrated History, Michael Leavy, Westholme Publishing, 2010.

Page 14: "The first use of railroads to support a military conflict came in the 1840s during the war with Mexico where, because of their scarcity, they were used modestly to transport troops west. The first railroad built specifically for warfare was the line built at Balclava during the Crimean War in 1855."

The image is found on page 4. The caption is "The first direct military use of the railroad occurred during the Crimean War. A track was laid across Crimea from the harbor at Balaklava to Sevastapool in order to expedite ammunition and supplies to British and French troops. Here the railway bed is being prepared. Iron rails and other supplies can be seen in the photo taken in 1855 by Roger Fenton. The image is in the Library of Congress.

CWL has just started Railroads of the Civil War and it may be one of the more noteworthy additions to Civil War book shelves during the sesquicentennial.

CWL--- Civil War Rails: How Railroads Changed the War

Civil War Rails: How Railroads Changed The American Civil War, John P. Hankey, Trains: The Magazine of Railroading, pp.24-35, 16 illus, map, charts, March 2011.

Hankey labels the American Civil War as the first industrialized war and the first war in which railroads and telegraphs were central to the outcome of the war. With the Souths defensive strategy, the Confederacy based is survival on innovative tactics supported by active and timely logistics. To win against the Union, the Confederacy had to not lose in the short run and secure a peace before the long run began. Hankey states that the success was not contingent to the fact that the South had less than half of the railroad mileage which the Federals had. Neither was the fact that Southern railroads were not networked was required for a successful drive for independence.

The Confederacy, Hankey states, did not grasp and hence ignored the strategic and tactical usefulness of railroads. The Rebels did not strengthen its industrial base, nor train its mechanics, nor integrate railroads into the planning of essential services. This failure of planing was generated by the same ideological and political convictions that were based upon states rights and a feudal labor system. The Southern way of life that led to secession seemed to preclude the national leaders from "forging the kind of railroad network that would enable the Confederacy to prevail." [p. 24]

By contrast the Federals' sharp awareness of the central planning needed to harness the iron horse for the preservation of the Union is revealed in two decisions made in 1862. The authorization of a transcontinental railroad and creation of a framework for the Military Railroad department. The secession of the deep South in early 1861 freed the Federal Congress on July 1 1862 to designate the route of the transcontinental railroad between Council Bluffs, Iowa and Sacramento, California. Congressional acts in the same year authorized federal invention and partial control of individual railroads and telegraph property. With the Union at stake, the mixing private enterprise with profits, and Federal needs army personal was the key to its preservation. It also helped that two the general manager of the Erie Railroad and the chief engineer of the Pennsylvania Railroad were commissioned as army generals.

Daniel C. McCallum, the general manager, and Herman Haupt, the engineer, integrated the railroads, the telegraph and army logistics is such a fashion that the U.S. field officers did not have to meddle with railroad workers. These two men created a military organization that brought together railroad professionals, army professionals, railroad laborers and army non-commissioned soldiers and achieved what appeared at the time be to miracles.

Hankey cites the first Confederate misstep was Jackson's April and May 1861 demolition and theft of the Baltimore and Ohio property. The company was a private enterprise and both Marylanders and Virginians employed in the Baltimore, Maryland to Wheeling, Virginia [no West Virginia until 1863] railroad lost their incomes. Jackson damaged the B&O to the tune of $35 million [2010 dollars] with additional damages to the local economies of secession friendly Maryland counties and loyal Virginian counties. Certainly it may have begun the slide out of the Confederacy of the counties of Virginia's northern panhandle.

Confederate successes were forthcoming. Moving Johnson's troops to Manassas in July 1861, Bragg's 32,000 from Mississippi to Tennessee in the summer of 1862, Longstreet's corps from Richmond to Georgia in September 1863 are notable successes. Yet the Federals matched these efforts in and exceeded them in the delivery of supplies to the battlefronts. Hankey cites the movement of railroad cars packed in the north, shipped to Washington, D.C., moved across the Long Bridge and to the Alexandria docks, then onto Potomac River barges, sailed to Aquia Creek, Fredericksburg or City Point and unloaded within a few miles of the Federal army.

Hankey discusses how the U.S. Military Railroad department grew with their mission and and how Confederate leaders failed to complete their mission. He covers the essential railroad numbers of the conflict such as the six railroads serving Richmond. Notable Southern zeros include the number or railroads that interchanged with each other in Richmond, the effective annual production of rail in the South after the war began, and the number of new locomotives completed in the South during the war. In another chart, Hankey lists Civil War railroad turning points. In a marvelous color map, Hankey shows the 317 railroads in the U.S in 1861, their routes, and their gauges. Though there are no citations in the essay and there are some generalization that may be contested, Hankey sets forth a fine overview of the terms and conditions of how railroads influenced the strategy and tactics, the limits and possibilities, and the outcome of the American Civil War.

Diorama Image Source: Diorama modeled on Civil War era photographs. Diorama located in Alexandria Virginia Historical Society. Diorama model maker is Bernard Kaminski.

Classic---The American Railroad Network, 1861-1890

The American Railroad Network, 1861-1890, George Rogers Taylor and Irene D. Neu, Harvard University Press; 1956, Arno Press, 1981; University of Illinois Press, Paperback/Map edition 2003, 113 pp., notes, index, two maps, $19.95.

It speaks well of The American Railroad Network that since its first publication in 1956 it has been republished twice and by two different publishers. Offering an historical antebellum background to the railroads that existed at the beginning of the war, the authors focus upon the dominance of local and regional economic markets. The clear and concise first chapter sets the groundwork for railroad improvements in general and the conversion of the fragmented and non-standard gauge of railroads in 1860. The value of this book for the Civil War reader is the charts and maps.

The United States contained seven different railroad gauges in January 1861. There were 350 railroad companies with 34,250 miles of track. A bit more than fifty percent of track was 4 feet 8 1/2 inches between rails and was owned by 210 of the 350 companies. The other 140 companies with a little less than fifty percent of the track and their gauges were between 4 feet 9 1/2 inches to 6 feet even.

By 1861 no part of the U.S. was more adequately provided with railroads than southern New England and the northern mid-Atlantic states. The first railroads were built in Massachusetts and Rhode Island with the 4 feet 8 1/2 inch gauge. This gauge migrated to New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. New York state contained three gauges, which hindered the quick transport of goods by rail. Pennsylvania's railroads, like New York's, were segmented by regions. Those in the eastern part of the state were and went north and northwest were for the anthracite coal trade and Philadelphia centric. Those tracks running west from Philadelphia sought access the Susquehanna River Valley's lumber trade and westward to Pittsburgh. Alternative gauges found in Pennsylvania were from Scranton northward toward the Hudson River Valley and from Pittsburgh westward to the Ohio River Valley.

Gauge barriers existed at the western gateways of Buffalo and Erie along with Pittsburgh, Wheeling, and Parkersburg. Significant gauge barriers occurred in the Midwest, throughout the South and in particular, Southern cities. The authors examine Richmond and Petersburg Virginia in particular. In both of these cities local interested prevented the linking of railroad lines. This stance was endorsed by the Virginia legislature which enacted laws that allowed cities to forbid railroad companies from using the cities' streets. The citizens of Petersburg loathed any attempt to connect the railroads in Petersburg with the railroads in Richmond.

In general the Civil War broke down regional and urban competition such as existed between Richmond and Petersburg. Military needs trumped civic economic needs. The federal Union's pursuit of the Transcontinental railroad's construction during the war on the 4 foot 8 1/2 gauge pressured new railroad construction to accept this gauge as the standard. The authors show how the federal Union solved the gauge differentials during the war by compromise, designing sliding wheels and car hoists.

Authors offer two maps that reveal exactly railroad companies' gauges as they existed on April 1, 1861. One fold out map shows the companies and gauges from the mid-Atlantic east and southeast coast to the west shore of the Mississippi River. A second fold out map shows the companies and gauges from Maine to Washington D.C.

The American Railroad Network, 1861-1890 offers a succinct discussion of the dilemma of railroad gauges during the war and the solutions which the war forced the railroad companies to accept. The maps are large fold out maps that are clear and easily studied. It is an essential book for Civil War enthusiasts who are curious about the logistics of supplying 100,000 man armies.

Classics Reprinted---Whistling Dixie: Southern Railroading Before the Rebellion and Black Virginians in Rebel Camps

Travel on Southern Antebellum Railroads, 1828-1860, Eugene Alvarez, University of Alabama Press, illustations, maps, notes, bibliography, index, 240 pp paperback $19.95

The matter-of-fact descriptive title of this interesting little volume on railroading in the pre–Civil War South does not do justice to Alvarez’s coverage of the subject. Along with his full account of trains and train accommodations,
he manages to encompass a number of social, political, and even ideological subjects.

“Here is a carefully researched account of all aspects of railroading—engines, cars, life aboard, perils of the road, stations—with much contemporary
flavor from this boisterous era.”-- Anniston Star

“A charming and informative examination of the early years of railroads. It is also history of the kind I like best: a study not of great events or momentous trends, but of how people lived.” — Jonathan Yardley, Miami Herald

“Excellently and extensively illustrated and can be recommended to all interested in trains and southern social history.” — Journal of Southern History

The Confederate Negro Virginia’s Craftsmen and Military Laborers, 1861–1865, James H. Brewer, University of Alabama Press, 240 pp, illustrtions, notes, bibliography, index, paperback, $29.95.

“Brewer has brought to light creditably the little known contribution of the Virginia Negroes, free and slave, to the Confederacy. In so doing, he corrects a serious historical omission while delivering a telling blow to the destruction of the stereotyped southern Negro during the war. . . . A milestone in the history of the period and essential to any serious study of the Civil War, the Negro, and the South.” — Journal of American History

“Brewer forcefully presents his main theme that the Virginia Negro ‘contributed a sustaining eff ort to the War for Southern Independence and an impressive mass of facts and statistics demonstrates that the Old Dominion’s more than half a million blacks made a vital contribution to the rebel cause. . . . Professor Brewer makes his point effectively and, in the process, adds a new dimension to the measurement of the Confederate war effort. No historian of the Civil War era can afford to ignore this book, which sheds so much new light.” — Journal of Southern History

A Gettysburg College “Top 200 Civil War Books” selection, Mayflower Award Winner for 1970

Source: text from publisher