Strap Rail U-Rail T-Rail

Figure 1
Types of rail used on Confederate railroads.

The Confederate War Department estimated that the Southern
railroads would need 49,500 tons of new rail each year just to replace
worn-out track. This equates to 467 miles of track laid with 60-pound
rail. In 1860, Southern mills produced only 26,000 tons of rail, just over
half the amount needed merely to maintain existing rail lines. Before
the war, the South imported most of its rail from England and from the
North, which produced 222,000 tons per year. With the onset of war,
Northern rail was, of course, no longer available. Imports from
England also dropped off, because rail, being a high-bulk, low-value
cargo, was not suited to blockade-running. Moreover, domestic
production of rail dropped essentially to zero, because the industrial
plants that manufactured rail shifted to other production.

The rail situation was exacerbated by the fact that not all Southern
railroads ran on good rail when the war began. Although the modem
form of rail, known as “T-rail,” was already in widespread use, many
Southern lines still used obsolete “U-rail.” Others even employed
antiquated “strap rail,” also known as “flatbar,” which consisted of
wooden rails topped by a strip of light iron (16 to 22 pounds per yard)
(see Figure 1), The Richmond and Danville Railroad, which became
one of the more important Southern rail arteries during the war,
included forty-seven miles of strap rail in 1861,


29

White, John H., Jr. The American Railroad Freight Car From the

Wood-Car Era to the Coming of Steel. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1993.

. A History of the American Locomotive, Its

Development: 1830-1880. New York: Dover Publications,
1979 [1968].

4#U.S. GPO: 2002-755-002/62021


Memphis &
Charleston RR

Virginia &
Tennessee RR

~'| |& Georgia RR|

Map 4
Main Confederate east-west rail artery.

From an engineering point of view, there was no inherent advantage
to the 4 foot, 8 % inch railroad gauge. Nor did differences in gauge
absolutely preclude the interchange of cars, Railroad cars with special
five-inch-wide wheels could negotiate both “standard” gauge and
“Ohio” gauge tracks, though not very safely. Where differences in
Gauge were greater, third rails could be laid between existing rails to
accommodate cars of narrower gauge. Some cars were constructed
with wheels that could be moved in and out on the axles, making it
possible to change the gauge of the wheel-sets themselves. It was also
feasible to lift cars off their wheels with hoists, then lower them onto
wheel-sets of different gauge. In the final extremity, track could be
re-laid to a different gauge with much less difficulty than one might
expect. In 1871, the Baltimore and Ohio railroad purchased an existing
rail line that ran 340 miles from Cincinnati to east St. Louis. The newly
purchased line used 6-foot gauge track, whereas the Baltimore and
Ohio was a 4-foot, 8 4- inch-gauge line. Work crews converted the
new line to standard gauge in only eight hours. And in 1886, those
southern railroads still running on 5-foot gauge all shifted to standard
gauge in the space of two days, relaying 13,000 miles of track in the
process.


16

of the rods into round-and-round motion that propels the locomotive
over the tracks,

Thus, the operation of a steam locomotive involves water, heat,
pressure, and the friction of numerous large moving parts. All of these
are the enemies of iron. It is no exaggeration to say that a steam
locomotive incrementally destroys itself every time it is fired up. Steam
locomotives require rebuilding at regular intervals, a process that
includes complete disassembly and replacement of major components
such as the firebox and flues (the pipes that carry hot gases through the
boiler). Rebuilds were necessary every few years for locomotives in
regular'use. Between rebuilds, items such as the tires (bands of
specially-hardened metal fitted over the drive wheels) would wear out
and need replacement. Flues needed regular cleaning. Bolts on frames
and trucks needed re-tightening and valve-gear for the pistons would
require regular adjustment. Routine maintenance during normal
operation included lubricating the drive linkages, cleaning the firebox,
and “blowing down” the boiler every hour or so. If the family minivan
required the level of maintenance of a steam locomotive, one would
have to stop every hour for fuel and oil, change tires every few months,
and get a complete engine and transmission rebuild every two years.

Unfortunately for the Confederacy, the Southern railroads were
short of virtually everything needed for locomotive maintenance,
including lubrication oil, machine tools, steam gauges, copper, tin, steel
(for tires), and even files. Substitutes for some materials existed—one
railroad found it possible to use bacon grease in place of the whale-oil
lubricants that became unavailable after secession. Others could not be
replaced at all. As locomotives deteriorated, so did performance.
Speeds dropped, making it necessary for locomotives to make more
runs in order to maintain delivery rates, thus compounding the
maintenance problem.

Nor were new locomotives available, Locomotive manufacture was
really an extension of the locomotive maintenance issue, because many
establishments that were capable of rebuilding locomotives could also
build new ones, Before the war, new locomotive construction took
place in Richmond and Petersburg in Virginia; Atlanta, Georgia; and
Nashville, Tennessee. Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond was the
largest producer of locomotives in the South, completing perhaps as
many as ten per year in the 1850’s. In 1860, Southern establishments
built a total of nineteen locomotives. This compares poorly to the 451
locomotives built that year in the North, including eighty-three
constructed at the North’s largest facility, the Baldwin Locomotive


Contents

Text ......
Bibliography.........ssssssssssssssescssessssscssssccssesesssecesnecsessesssseecseessenneeees2 7

iii


Bibliography

Black, Robert C. The Railroads of the Confederacy. Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 1952.

Bogart, Ernest L. Economic History of. Europe, 1760-1939. New
York: Longmans, Green and Company, 1942,

Campbell, E. G. “The United States Military Railroads, 1862-1865.
Part I. War Time Operation and Maintenance.” Journal of the
American Military History Foundation. Vol. 2, No. 2, Summer
1938, 70-89.

Clark, John E., Jr. Railroads in the Civil War: The Impact of
Management on Victory and Defeat, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State
University Press, 2001.

Ely, James W. Railroads and American Law. Lawrence: University
Press of Kansas, 2002.

Haupt, Herman. Reminiscences of General Herman Haupt.
Milwaukee: Wright and Joys, 1901.

Hungerford, Edward. The Story of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad,
1827-1897. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1928.

Huston, James A. The Sinews of War: Army Logistics, 1775-1953.
Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Military History, 1966.

Johnston, Angus James. Virginia Railroads in the Civil War.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1961.

Kamm, Samuel Richey. The Civil War Career of Thomas A. Scott,
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1940.

Lord, Francis A. Lincoin’s Railroad Man: Herman Haupt.
Rutherford, NJ: Farleigh Dickenson University Press, 1969.

McPherson, James M. Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era.
New York: Ballantine Books, 1989 [1988].

27


13

ay Danville-Greensboro

|_A

Meridian-Selma |: -
1862

Lawton-Live Oak
1861-65

Map7
‘Wartime railroad construction in the Confederacy,

By 1863, rail was wearing out all over the south, and stockpiles of
newrail were nearly gone. The deterioration of rail triggered second
and third order effects that rippled throughout the Confederate rail
system, involving even those railroads that still ran on good rail.
Worn-out rails forced trains to run slower, which meant that more
trains were needed to maintain delivery rates. Thus worn rail
contributed to a system-wide shortage of locomotives and cars, and
reduced the amount of cargo delivered.

Given the normal wear and tear on rails, plus the desirability of
replacing strap-rail and U-rail, the Confederacy had no rail left to
expand its railroads, The North added approximately 4,000 miles of
tracks during the war, which was actually much lower than the rate of
new construction in the pre-war years. The Confederacy, on the other
hand, could only attempt to close small gaps between existing railroads
(see Map 7). The rail used in these projects was generally obtained by
cannibalizing other railroads, often against the will of the donors.
Eventually, the Confederate government would also confiscate rail
from low traffic railroads to replace worn-out rail on vital lines. As the
war progressed, the major rail lines stayed open, but low-traffic feeder
lines actually contracted. This may have contributed to the general
shortage of food in Confederate cities and army camps in the last



19

railroad wheel that cost $15 in 1861 cost $500 by the end of the war,
owing to ruinous rates of inflation that crippled not only the railroads,
but also all aspects of the Confederate economy.

Railroad personnel constituted another asset that declined as the
war progressed. Railroading in the 1860’s was a manpower-intensive
business. A typical train, carrying 100 tons of cargo, required a crew
of five to seven men. (In contrast, a freight train today needs a crew of
two to move 10,000 tons of cargo.) The crew included an engineer to
operate the locomotive, a fireman whose full-time job consisted of
fueling the firebox and monitoring water levels and steam pressures,
and a conductor who supervised the overall operation of the train. The
remainder of the crew consisted of brakemen, who clambered from
car to car to set manual brakes when the train was required to slow or
stop. In addition to train crews, railroads employed track crews to
maintain the right-of-way. Heavily-traveled lines employed as many
as four to five men per mile of track just for maintenance. Additional
personnel included station agents, telegraph operators, switch-men to
operate the manual switches that diverted rolling stock from one track
to another, craftsmen and laborers to maintain rolling stock, and
accountants to keep the books.

The Confederacy started the war with about 16,000 railroad
employees. This figure began immediately to decline. Some railroad
workers from Northern states went home at the time of secession, An
unknown number of others volunteered for military service. Still others
were drafted. The Confederate conscription law of 1862 initially
exempted railroad workers, but not all draft officials honored the
exemption. Moreover, the law was amended in October 1862, narrowing
the railroad exemption to management and skilled workers, Another
amendment in 1864 further narrowed the exemption. Competing
demands for labor, such as the armaments industry, depleted the ranks of
skilled railroad workers even more.

Much of the unskilled labor on Southern railroads was traditionally
performed by slaves, both those owned by the railroad itself and others
hired out by plantation owners. As the war progressed, this source of
labor declined as well. Slaves working on the railroad were more likely
to escape or be liberated by Union raiders than those engaged in
agricultural work, thus making owners reluctant to place their slaves in
such labor,

Attrition among railroad workers was bad enough under normal
circumstances without the added problems caused by the war.
Railroading was a dangerous business in the 1800’s. Rough estimates


15

Libeary of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division

Mlustration 2
A typical Civil War locomotive.

Steam Dome

Piston

Figure 3
Major components of a steam locomotive,


28

Pennsylvania Railroad Company. Ninth Annual Report of the
Directors of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company to the
Stockholders, February 4, 1856. Philadelphia: Crissey and Markley,
1856.

Pickenpaugh, Roger. Rescue by Rail: Troop Transfer and the Civil
War in the West, 1863. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press,
1998.

Sherman, William T. Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman. New
York: Appleton, 1875.

Sims, F.W. “Report on Railroad Transportation.” February 10,
1865. Reprinted in Southern Historical Society Papers, Vol. 2 No.
3, September 1876, 121-122.

St. John, I. M. “Resources of the Confederacy in 1865—Report of
General I. M. St. John, Commissary General.” Reprinted in
Southern Historical Society Papers, Vol. 3 No. 3, March 1877,
97-103.

Stover, John F. The Railroads of the South, 1865-1900: A Study in
Finance and Control. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 1955.

. American Railroads. Second Edition. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1997.

Turner, George Edgar. Victory Rode the Rails: The Strategic Place
of Railroads in the Civil War. Lincoln: University of Nebraska
Press, 1992 [1953].

The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of
the Union and Confederate Armies. Washington, D.C.: U.S.
Government Printing Office, 1899.

Weber, Thomas. The Northern Railroads in the Civil War
1861-1865. New York: King’s Crown Press [Columbia University],
1952.

Westwood, John. Railways at War. San Diego, CA: Howell-North
Books, 1980.


10

|
Jul-Aug 1862: | | rain,
30,000 men | /) artillery, |(
776 miles },~! | wagons

c14 days ~

Map 5
Bragg's rail movement from Tupelo to Chattanooga.

Sep 1863:
12,000 men
800 miles
12 days

Map 6
Longstreet's rail movement from Virginia to Chickamauga.



e New England and Mid Atlantic: 10,000

© Middle West: 11,000
© South: —9.000
30,000

Chart 4

Miles of railroad track in the United States, 1860.

system in the world, ranking behind only the northern United States and
Great Britain in rail mileage (see Chart 2).

Moreover, southerners as a whole were enthusiastic supporters of
railroads and rail expansion. They invested money in railroads both
privately and through state and municipal governments. The states of
Virginia and North Carolina owned large blocks of stock in their states’
railroads. Georgia owned a major railroad outright. Other Southern
states loaned money for railroad construction within their borders. The
railroad was an important part of public and private life throughout
much of the South.

Thus the Confederate States of America was, at the time of its
inception, endowed with a major asset in the form of its railroads. It is
also true, however, that the Southern railroads labored under some
serious deficiencies that prevented their full utilization for military
purposes. The most significant of these problems was that the
Confederate rail system was really a collection of relatively small
railroads, and was not in fact a “system” at all. Southern railroads were
typically short feeder lines connecting agricultural areas to water ports

¢ US (North) 21,000

¢ Britain 10,000

© US (South) 9,000

¢ Germany 7,000

¢ France 6,000
Chart 2

Comparison of rallroad track mileage, 1860.


25

Mustration 5
‘Smeed rail twister.

Major General Robert F, Hoke set out on a movement by rail from
Petersburg, Virginia to Wilmington, North Carolina. Its itinerary took
it over the Piedmont Railroad, one of the few stretches of new track
built during the war. Hoke’s lead brigade required three days to travel
forty-eight miles over the Piedmont, owing to the miserable condition
of rail and rolling stock. The remainder of the division walked the
forty-eight miles.

In February 1865, the Confederate government Proposed re-gauging
some tracks across North Carolina from 4 feet 8 4 inches to 5 feet, so
that broad-gauge locomotives and rolling stock could be evacuated
from South Carolina. Govemor Zebulon Vance of! North Carolina
successfully defied the government, and the South Carolina rolling
stock was lost.

Finally, in March of 1865, Brigadier General Isaac M. St. John, the
newly-appointed Commissary General, reported that he could not
guarantee the delivery of 500 tons of military rations per day into
Richmond, on top of other military and civilian traffic. Once again, the
decrepit condition of locomotives and railroad cars was to blame. Food
aplenty was piling up in the depots of rural Virginia, but the railroads



22

However, the most critical personnel shortage was not among,
operating crews; rather, it was the inadequate supply of “mechanics,”
or machinists, for locomotive maintenance. Locomotives in the Civil
War era were not mass-produced items. Replacing a part often meant
fabricating a new one. Mechanics capable of such work were skilled
craftsmen who underwent extensive apprenticeships before mastering
their trade. The Confederacy had only a small pool of such skilled
workers when the war began, and had no time to develop apprentices
into master machinists or metalworkers. Moreover, the railroads had to
compete with the armaments industry for these critical personnel. The
shortage of mechanics on the Confederate railroads set up yet another
vicious cycle—maintenance deferred because of the lack of skilled
labor invariably resulted in even more serious problems later.

By the last year of the war, Confederate armies were beginning to go
hungry because the railroads could no longer maintain adequate levels
of supply. Ironically, thousands of the hungry soldiers sitting in army
camps were the very railroad workers whose absence impeded the
performance of the railroads. Perhaps these individuals could have
been put to better use delivering supplies rather than consum ing them.

The final factor contributing to the demise of Confederate railroads
was the Union raider, who tore up track, burned bridges, and destroyed
rolling stock. However, by 1864, when Union raids became truly
effective, the decline of the South’s railroads was already well-advanced.
Raids only accelerated the on-going process of attrition.

Itis more difficult to do lasting damage to arailroad deliberately than
one might assume. Consider the problem confronting a Union raider
who rides up to a Confederate rail line on horseback, carrying nothing
but a carbine and perhaps a few hand tools. What can he do to damage
an infrastructure that was built to withstand the pounding ofa thirty-ton
locomotive? Any damage that he inflicts can probably be repaired with
little more effort than the raider expended in causing it, Union cavalry
raiders operating around Atlanta in 1864 discovered that rail lines that
took a day to “destroy” would be back in operation two or three days
later.

Railroad bridges, commonly constructed of wood, were vulnerable
to fire, but it took time for a raiding party to gather combustibles and get
a blaze going to the point that it could not easily be extinguished (see
Illustration 3). Herman Haupt of the US Military Railroads developed
an explosive “torpedo” that could wreck a bridge much more
expeditiously. This device consisted of a tin can filled with black
powder, with a bolt running through it from end to end. The head of the


Illustrations

Charts

1, Miles of railroad track in the United States, 1860.
2. Comparison of railroad tack mileage, 1860

Maps
1. Principal Confederate railroads, 1861.........0ssse
2. Richmond, Virginia: six railroads, no interchange
3. Major rail construction in the South, 1850’...
4. Main Confederate east-west rail artery

5. Bragg’s rail movement from Tupelo to Chattanooga.......... 10
6. Longstreet’s rail movement from Virginia to
Chickamauga .......ccsssssssssssssssssesseessscensssssessssssssssssessstsenvesssseee LO
7. Wartime railroad construction in the Confederacy .........006 13
Figures

1. Types of rail used on Confederate railroads
2. The expansive power of steam......
3. Major components of a steam engin
4. Railroad wheel on a rail (1)...
5. Railroad wheel on a rail (2)...
6. Railroad coupling systems ..........0000«
7. Most common cause of boiler explosions

Illustrations

1. A comparison of obsolete and modem rail
2. A typical Civil War locomotive

3. Destroyed railroad bridge on the Richmond,
Fredericksburg, and Potomac Railroad

4, Haupt’s “torpedo”
5. Smeed rail twister

Unless otherwise noted, all illustrations/photos are courtesy of the author.



Intentionally
Left

Blank


ani

Mustration 1
A comparison of obsolete and modern rail. Left to right: Civil War-era U-rail; 30-pound
rail such as might have been found on Civil War railroads; and modern rall of 132
pounds, The 132-pound rail stands about 7 % inches high.

1863, historians might well list the Confederate railroads as a decisive
element contributing to Confederate victory,

Yet the Confederate rail system ultimately did fail, and historians
point to that failure as a contributing cause of Confederate defeat, What
went wrong? The fatal flaw was, in fact, time itself. The war simply
lasted too long for the Confederate railroads to sustain it. How can time
cause a rail system to fail?

First of all, there is wear and tear to the physical plant, starting with
the rail itself. The rail used in the 1860’s was much smaller than that
employed today (see Illustration 1). Rail size is measured by how much
a yard of rail weighs. Modern railroads use 120-pound rail or larger.
(Three feet of rail weighs 120 pounds.) In the 1860’s, heavily-traveled
main line railroads employed 60-pound rail. Moreover, it was made of
iron, not steel, so even though Civil War-era locomotives and cars were
proportionately lighter than those today, the rail still wore out as fast or
faster. (A Civil War era locomotive weighed about thirty tons,
compared to 134 tons or more for a modem diese]. Freight cars in the
1860’s carried about ten tons of cargo apiece, as opposed to 100 tons
today.) Rail could wear out in as little as three years on the most
heavily-traveled lines,


Rails to Oblivion: The Decline of
Confederate Railroads in the Civil War

Christopher R. Gabel, Ph.D.

A feature commonly found in general history books on the American
Civil War is a set of statistics comparing the resources of North and
South at the time of secession. Although such statistics may vary from
source to source, they invariably show that the North enjoyed major
advantages in terms of population, industrial capacity, wealth, and
railroads. A careless reader might infer from these statistics that the
Confederate States of America was doomed and the outcome of the
Civil War decided before the first shot was fired. Even the more
prudent reader might assume that these resource disparities were causal
factors in the Confederacy’s defeat. However, such assumptions
overlook the fact that the war lasted four bloody years, and ultimately
approximated the modern notion of “total” war. If the Confederacy’s
resource disadvantages were truly as debilitating as the statistics
suggest, the war should have ended much earlier than it did.

Railroads are usually included in such comparisons of relative
resources. Statistics show that the Confederacy possessed only
one-third of the miles of track found in the United States at the time of
secession, one-third of the freight cars, one-fifth of the locomotives,
one-fifth of the railroad workers, one-eighth of rail production,
one-tenth of the telegraph stations, and one-twenty-fourth of total
American locomotive production. Did this disparity constitute a
crippling disadvantage for the South? On the contrary—Southern
railroads were in fact sufficient for the Confederacy to win the war, or
perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the Souther rail system
was good enough to win a war. This distinction will become clearer as
we proceed,

In fact, the rail net in the southern United States prior to secession
was a huge system and was expanding rapidly. During the decade of the
1850’s, it quadrupled in extent, growing by 7,000 miles. Although the
seceded Southern states had only thirty-three percent of the prewar US
rail mileage, they also had only forty percent of the population total,
thus the per capita level of rail service was not dramatically different
from that in the North (see Chart 1). Moreover, when compared to other
nations, the new Confederacy possessed the third largest national rail


17

Works located in Philadelphia. Both before and during the war, the
great majority of Southern locomotives were of Northern manufacture.
Once the war started, Southern locomotive production dropped to zero.
Tredegar focused on armaments production, as did many other
facilities that otherwise might have built locomotives. Except for a
handful of locomotives captured during the war, Confederate railroads
had to meet the heavy demands of wartime transportation with the
locomotives on hand when the war began. And, of course, these
locomotives deteriorated as the war progressed.

By 1863, the locomotive maintenance problem had become acute.
In that year, the annual report for the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad
listed forty locomotives on the roster. Of that number, nine were
classified as “useless,” and another nine as “awaiting repair.” It appears
that all of this attrition was due to normal wear and tear, not to enemy
action. Since locomotives were non-standardized hand-built items, it
would have been difficult or impossible for the Virginia and Tennessee
to salvage parts from one locomotive to keep others running.

Railroad cars deteriorated over time, too. Cars in that era were
constructed almost entirely of wood, and were expected to last seven or
eight years under normal use. However, repairing a car involved
withdrawing it from service, which the wartime demands for
transportation made more difficult. While the Confederate railroads
could and did replace wooden components, and even build new cars,
the production of cast-iron wheels and wrought-iron axles posed
greater problems. A railroad wheel is a deceptively sophisticated
device, The virtue of rail transport derives from the fact that the contact
patch, or surface of the wheel in actual contact with the rail, is very
small, thus minimizing friction (see Figures 4 and 5). Railroad wheels
are tapered, a feature which reduces stress on curves where the wheels
on either end of the axle move at different speeds. Even a minor
imperfection in a wheel can force a train to slow down, damage rail, or
cause a derailment. Worn-out wheels, along with bad rail and
deteriorating locomotives, lowered train speeds and reduced the
volume of traffic.

The Confederacy did possess the capability to manufacture new
wheels, but ironically, as the rail system deteriorated, production of
wheels went down. Foundries in Augusta, Georgia which were capable
of producing fifty wheels a day were making only fifteen a day by 1863,
because the railroads could not deliver materials in sufficient quantity to
maintain full production. Naturally, as wheel production declined, so did
deliveries of raw materials, further depressing production. Moreover, a


Rails to Oblivion:
The Decline of Confederate
Railroads in the Civil War

by
Dr. Christopher R. Gabel

LK



Richmond,

Fredericksburg
&Potomac RR -

SARS RAGN Nt S
eee |
} t i : i py
Richmond & |i : b
Danville RR y York River
oes RR

Richmond & i vO ——
Petersburg RR Chesterfield RR

Map 2
Richmond, Virginia: six railroads, no interchange.

transportation as a business in and of itself and had no interest in seeing
traffic come in one end of their railroad and go out the other.

In the 1850’s some longer, regional (as opposed to local) railroads
appeared in the south, most notably certain north-south lines west of the
Appalachian Mountains (see Map 3). Unfortunately for the Confederate
war effort, these lines were in the wrong place (and ran in the wrong
direction) for the support of most military operations. What the
Confederacy needed were east-west lines linking the major theaters of
war, The most direct rail line for this purpose, running from Memphis,
Tennessee to Virginia, was in fact four separate railroads (see Map 4 on
page 6).. The longest of these segments bore the imposing title “Memphis
and Charleston Railroad,” but in reality its tracks ran only from Memphis
to Stevenson, Alabama.

The problems of railroad interconnection and long-haul traffic were
notunique to the South. Northern railroads typically also had originated
as local feeder lines for ports. Cities served by multiple rail lines, such
as Philadelphia, lacked connections between railroads. As inthe South,
traffic moving from the eastern seaboard to the Mississippi Valley had
totravel over four or more rail lines. However, in the North, the process
of consolidating short railroads into larger interregional trunk lines was


wi

NE
egettttand

Map 14
Principal Confederate railroads, 1861,

(see Map 1). For example, the South Carolina Railroad, which ran the
first scheduled steam-powered trains in America in 1830, was
constructed to draw agricultural products from the hinterland to the city
of Charleston for the benefit of the city’s merchants. Such railroads
were not, as a rule, city-to-city or inter-regional transportation
corridors. When war came, these railroads were not well suited to the
long-distance hauls that military strategy required. One could argue
that the South’s navigable waterways, and not the railroads that fed
them, were really the Confederacy’s national transportation system.

As a result, there was often no physical connection between
railroads. In 1861, no fewer than six different railroads served the city
of Richmond, Virginia, yet none of these lines connected with another
(see Map 2). Even in cases where physical connections did exist, there
were usually no arrangements between railroads for the locomotives or
cars from one to use the tracks of the other. To travel long distances,
passengers and freight usually had to change cars every time they
passed from one railroad to the next. Railroad stockholders—typical ly,
local businessmen, municipalities, and state governments—viewed
railroads as a way to bring people and goods into town. They did not see



24

Reminiscences of General Haupt, 1901

Illustration 4
Haupt’s “torpedo,”

lift and twist rail quickly (see Illustration 5). Once again, however, it is
not known to what extent this device actually was used.

From early 1864 to the end of the war, the Confederate ability to
restore railroads damaged by Union raids began to decline. Major
General William T. Sherman’s large-scale expedition through
Mississippi in February 1864 caused damage that took four months to
repair. When Sherman cut a swath of destruction across Georgia later
that year, some of the affected rail lines remained out of service for the
duration of the war. The permanence of the disruption wrought on such
raids was due partly to the increased magnitude of the destruction, and
partly to the Confederacy’s declining ability to muster the labor and

* materials needed to rebuild.

The Confederate government, as a matter of principle, offered little
or no aid to railroads damaged through acts of war. Often explained as
an example of the “states rights” philosophy of limited government,
this inaction is inconsistent with the government’s willingness to
conscript railroad workers and confiscate rails. The Confederacy was
willing to take, but not give.

By late 1864, the railroads of the Confederacy were slipping from
decline into collapse. In December, a division under the command of


23

Vs
Illustration 3
Destroyed railroad bridge on the Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Potomac Railroad.

|

bolt sealed one end, and a nut sealed the other, leaving space for a fuse
to protrude from the can (see Illustration 4). Using a simple hand auger,
a raider could bore a hole in a bridge timber, insert the torpedo, and
detonate it. If he picked the right timber to destroy, one raider could
drop a bridge in a few minutes. However, it is not clear that this device
ever saw widespread use.

Union raiders expended much effort in attacking track. Rail would
be torn up (with considerable effort), and placed on top of a pile of
burning ties. When the rail was red hot, the raiders would then bend it,
or even wrap it around a tree. This, too, was time-consuming and
labor-intensive, particularly for lightly-equipped cavalry raiders.
Moreover, rail subjected to this treatment could usually be straightened
and re-laid, sometimes right on the spot.

The US Military Railroads came up with a better way to ruin rail.
One of Haupt’s subordinates, E. C. Smeed, invented a portable device
that made it possible to both tear up rail quickly and to twist it, which
generally ruined the rail for good. The Smeed device resembled a large
horseshoe which raiders could carry easily on horseback. The insertion
of a handy telegraph pole or fence-rail into the device turned it into a
giant crow-bar. Using only muscle-power and leverage, raiders could


Intentionally
Left

Blank


14

Water expands 1,600 to 1,800 times when it turns to steam

Figure 2
The expansive power of steam.

months of the war. More food was being grown in the South than ever,
because many farms that once grew cotton had shifted production to
food crops. However, the crops raised could not always be shipped due
to the cannibalization of rural rail lines.

Railroad rolling stock suffered from wear and tear as well, most
notably, the locomotives upon which all rail transportation
depended. To fully comprehend the dimensions of this problem, it is
important to understand how steam locomotives work. The concept
of steam power is based upon the fact that water expands 1,600 to
1,800 times in volume when it is turned into steam (see Figure 2), It
is this expansive force that powers steam locomotives.

The key components of a steam locomotive are its firebox, boiler,
and pistons (see Illustration 2 and Figure 3). Fuel (in the 1860’s,
usually wood) is burned in the firebox, heating the water in the boiler.
Hot combustion gases pass through pipes inside the boiler and exit the
locomotive through the smokestack. Water in the pressurized boiler
tums to steam and is replenished by water pumped from a small car
called a “tender,” which is attached to the rear of the locomotive. Steam
collects in a dome at the top of the boiler and is carried under pressure
through pipes to the cylinders at the front of the locomotive. There aset
of valves injects the steam alternately in front of and behind the pistons,
driving them back and forth. The back-and-forth motion is transmitted
to the drive wheels by a series of rods. Rods connect to the wheels on
“eccentrics” (off-center hubs) that convert the back-and-forth motion


= Dr. Christopher R. Gabel =!

Dr. Christopher Gabel received his
undergraduate education at The Pennsylvania
State University and eamed his M.A. and
Ph.D. at The Ohio State University. He joined
the U. S. Army Command and General Staff
College’s Combat Studies Institute in 1983.
Dr. Gabel teaches military history in the core
curriculum and conducts staff rides to various
Civil War battlefields, In 1994, he was
recognized as the U. S. Army Training and
Doctrine Command Civilian Instructor of the
‘Year, His publications include The U.S. Army
GHQ Maneuvers of 1941; Seek, Strike,
Destroy: U.S. Army tank Destroyer Doctrine
in World War II, Railroad Generalship:
Foundation of Civil War Strategy; and Staff
Ride Handbook for the Vicksburg Campaign,
December 1862-July 1863.



U.S. Army Command General and Staff College ;
Fort Leavenworth, Kansas

CAS



20

suggest that two to four percent of railroad workers were injured or
killed on the job each year during this period. One-third to one-half of
these accidents arose from the couplers used to link railroad cars
together. The modern “knuckle” coupler, used universally in the
United States today, had not been invented at the time of the Civil War.
Knuckle couplers engage automatically when cars are pushed together.
In the 1860's, cars were coupled with the link-and-pin system. This
technology required a worker to stand between cars (one of which was
moving), guide a link by hand into the pocket of the oncoming car, and
then drop a pin down through the pocket (see Figure 6). Needless to
say, accidents were frequent. (Parenthetically, it was a Confederate
veteran named Eli H. Janney who invented the knuckle coupler still
used today.)

= |

Link & Pin Janney Coupler (1873)
Side
Top
Top
Figure 6
Railroad coupling systems.

A much rarer, but more dramatic way of becoming a railroad
casualty was through boiler explosions. Water in the boiler of a
locomotive is hotter than 212 degrees Fahrenheit. Most of it remains in
liquid form because it is kept under pressure. Civil War-era
‘locomotives operated on a boiler pressure of about 140 pounds per
square inch. (In the 20% Century, boiler pressures exceeded 200 psi.) If
the pressure within a boiler is suddenly released, all of the water in the


Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gabel, Cistopher R. (Christopher Richard), 1954-

Rails to oblivion : the decline of Confederate railroads in the Civil War /by Christopher R. Gabel.

p.cm,

Includes biographical references.

1. United States—History—Civil War, 1861-1865—Transportation. 2.
Railroads--Confederate States of America—History. 3.
Railroads—Confederate States of Americe—Maintenance and repair, 4,
Railroads~Confederate States of Americe—Management. 5. Confederate
States of America. Army—Transportation. 1. Title.

E545 .G33 2002 2002012390
973.7-

A full list of CSI\CGSC Press publications, many of them available for
downloading, can be found at:
http://www.cgsc.army.mil/csi


Thus, the railroads of the Confederacy entered the Civil War with
significant problems in interchanging traffic and with long-distance
hauls, though differences in gauge was by no means the only problem.
Getting the railroads to work together as a system was not an
unattainable goal, but it would have required centralized coordination
and perhaps even compulsion. The only agency capable of exercising
such control was the Confederate government. The government of the
United States, which faced comparable problems, established in 1862:
the US Military Railroads, an agency within the War Department that
had compulsory powers over the Northem railroads, Not until May
1863 did the Confederate Congress grant comparable powers to its
executive branch. The US Military Railroads ultimately became the
largest railroad in North America, complete with administrative,
construction, and operational capabilities. In contrast, the Confederate
military railroad agency never became more than a small contracting,
advisory, and coordinating bureau within the Confederate War
Department.

The most fundamental difference between the US and Confederate
military railroad agencies was that the individudls who ran, the US
Military Railroads possessed both the expertise and the authority todo
the job. Daniel C. McCallum, director of the USMRR was a railroad
man of long experience and a pioneer in the field of railroad
organization. He also frequently enjoyed direct access to the Secretary
of War. Commissioned as a colonel, he eventually attained the rank of
brigadier general. McCallum knew what had to be done and, with the
Secretary of War backing him up, had the power to make it happen.

By way of contrast, consider the case of William S. Ashe, the first
head of the railroad office within the Confederate War Department,
serving in that capacity from July 1861 to April 1862. Ashe had once
served as president of the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad, but he was
really a politician and a businessman rather than a hands-on railroad
man. His political credentials were probably more important than his
expertise as qualifications for the position. Given the official title of
Assistant Quartermaster General, he lacked direct access to the
Secretary of War. Ashe was commissioned as a major, a rank too low to
carry much influence in either civilian or military circles. Lacking both
a staff and any compulsory powers over the railroads, Ashe could not
solve the problem of coordinating the Confederacy’s railroads. Upon
his departure, Ashe’s position went unfilled for seven months.

His successor, William M. Wadley, was one of the most experienced
railroad men in the Confederacy. Born in New Hampshire but a


In contrast to the Confederate experience, the United States
government paid somewhat higher s and got better service. Moreover,
when military necessity demanded, the US Military Railroads could
and would move in and take over any railroad needed for the support of
vital military operations. The threat of military takeover, coupled with
the money to be made hauling military traffic, persuaded the Northern
railroads to become willing supporters of the war effort.

It is true that the Northern 'tailroads backed the Union war effort
more efficiently that the Southem railroads supported the Confederate
effort. However, it can also be argued that the Confederacy did not
require the same high degree of support from its railroads. The
Confederates, being on the strategic defensive, faced a far simpler
problem in logistics than did the Union military, which had to mount
offensive operations on a continental scale. With specific regard to the
railroads, it should be noted that the vast majority of the US Military
Railroads’ efforts were expended on captured railroads, not Northern
lines, The military seizure of Northern railroads was rare. In general,
the Union government negotiated with Northern railroads in much the
same manner that the Confederate government dealt with the Southern
lines, with the important difference that the Northern railroads knew
that they faced compulsion if they failed to cooperate.

Indeed, the evidence suggests that the Confederate railroads
performed adequately through the first two years of the war. Despite
the various inefficiencies inherent to poor coordination and
less-than-effective centralized’ control, no Confederate army lost a
battle in that period because ofa failure of rail support. On the contrary,
the period 1861-63 may well be seen as a period of Confederate military
railroading triumphs. In the first large-scale battle of the war, the First
Battle of Bull Run in July 1861, Confederate troops arriving by rail
were the decisive factor in securing a Confederate victory. A year later,
Southern railroads conducted the single biggest military rail movement
of the war, when the army commanded by General Braxton Bragg
moved from Tupelo, Mississippi to Chattanooga, Tennessee (see Map
5). Over a period of about two weeks, 30,000 soldiers moved 776 miles
to launch Bragg’s invasion of Kentucky. In September 1863,
Lieutenant General James Longstreet’s corps of 12,000 men traveled
800 miles from Virginia to northern Georgia and the Battle of
Chickamauga (see Map 6). This movement required Sims to
coordinate traffic on fourteen different railroads. Had the war ended in


Rails to Oblivion:
The Battle of Confederate
Railroads in the Civil War

by
Dr. Christopher R. Gabel

U.S. Army Command and General Staff College Press
Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 66927-6900

cn ( Sec MMM



Intentionally
Left

Blank



18

Figure 4
Railroad wheel on rail (1).

Figure 5
Railroad wheel on rail (2).


FOREWORD

Military professionals need always to recognize the centrality of
logistics to military operations. In this booklet, Dr. Christopher R. Gabel
provides a companion piece to his “Railroad Generalship” which
explores the same issues from the other side of the tracks, so to speak.
“Rails to Oblivion” shows that neither brilliant generals nor valiant
soldiers can, in the long run, overcome the effects of a neglected and
deteriorating logistics system. Moreover, the cumulative effect of
mundane factors such as metal fatigue, mechanical friction, and
accidents in the civilian workplace can contribute significantly to the
outcome ofa war. And no matter how good some thing or idea may look
on paper, or how we delude ourselves, we and our soldiers must live with,
and die in, reality. War is a complex business. This booklet explores
some of the facets of war that often escape the notice of military officers,
and as COL Jerry Morelock intimated in his foreword to “Railroad
Generalship,” these facets decide who wins and who loses.

4.

September 2002 LAWYN C. EDWARDS
Colonel, Aviation
Director, Combat Studies Institute

CGSC Press publications cover a variety of military history topics. The
views expressed in this CGSC Press publication are those of the authors
and not necessarily those of the Department of the Army or the
Department of Defense.

i— Dr. Christopher R. Gab


26

had lost the ability to move what amounted to five trains per day into the
nation’s capital.

General St. John’s report serves as a fitting epitaph to the
Confederate railroad system. It began the war as a powerful military
instrument, capable of shaping campaigns and winning battles.
Through 1863, the railroads performed capably and helped sustain the
Confederacy in a war that might otherwise have ended in quick defeat.
It is no coincidence that in the years during which the railroads
performed well, the Confederacy was able to hold its own militarily.
The decline and ultimate collapse of the railroads paralleled the
downfall of the Confederacy itself. The South’s inability to sustain its
railroads over time, and not the railroads themselves, proved to bea
fatal flaw. The railroads died of neglect, and the Confederate States of
America found itself on the rails to oblivion.



21

ay Water fails to cover crownsheet

Figure 7
Most common cause of boiler explosions.

boiler tries to turn into steam at the same time, expanding 1,600 times in
volume, and creating an explosion likea bomb. One boiler explosion in
the 20TM century threw a 150-ton locomotive 131 feet through the air,
killed the engineer immediately, and tossed the fireman (who later
died) 206 feet. The force of the explosion was estimated atthree million
pounds per square inch.

The most common cause of catastrophic boiler explosion (then and
now) is low water level in the boiler (see Figure 7). Through crew
negligence, obstructed water supply, or faulty gauges, water in the
boiler drops so low that it no longer covers the “crownsheet,” as the top
surface of the firebox is called. Lacking water on the boiler side to carry
away heat, the crownsheet gets hotter and hotter until it weakens and
breaks, releasing the pressure inside the boiler. Even if the rupture is not
large enough to cause an explosion, the escape of steam into the cab is
sure to injure or kill the crew.

Obviously, railroad workers who are poorly trained or exhausted
from overwork are more likely to suffer from operating accidents than
experienced, well-rested crews. It is reasonable to assume that the
Confederacy’s shortage of railroad workers led to increased accident
rates, further exacerbating the labor shortage.


Louisville &
[Nashville RR

New Orleans,
Jackson &
Great Northern RR

Map 3
Major rail construction In the South, 1850's.

farther advanced than it was in the South, where local stockholders still
dominated the railroad business. By 1861, no fewer than four major
east-west railroads traversed the Appalachian Mountains in the North,

The problem of interchanging traffic between Souther railroads was
not primarily one of different track gauges, as many Ciyil War books
suggest. Such histories often assert that Northern railroads were
“standard gauge,” meaning that the distance between rails was 4 feet, 8 ‘4
inches on all lines, whereas Southern railroads utilized a multiplicity of
gauges, preventing the interchange of locomotives and cars. In fact, there
was no “standard” gauge anywhere at the time of the Civil War. The
so-called “standard” gauge was most common in the Northeast. Ohio and
Indiana railroads were generally of 4 foot, 10-inch gauge. Missouri
railroads used a gauge of 5 feet, 6 inches. The Erie Railroad in New York
State ran a gauge of 6 feet. A total of eleven different gauges could be
found on Northern railroads.

Southern railroads may actually have been more standardized than
those on the North. The most widespread gauge in the South was 5 feet,
which was common in Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama,
Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and some lines in Virginia. Other
railroads in Virginia, and those in North Carolina, utilized 4 feet, 8 '4
inches.


long-time resident of the South, Wadley worked for railroads in
Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi before the war. He certainly
brought expertise to the job, but he exercised little more authority than
his predecessor, despite the fact that he was appointed with the rank of
colonel. For reasons unknown, the railroad office under Wadley was
transferred from the Quartermaster to the Adjutant General’s
department. Like Ashe, Wadley sought to obtain cooperative
agreements among the Confederacy’s railroads, but lacked the
authority to do more than advise and recommend. When the
Confederate Congress passed legislation in 1863 granting compulsory
powers to the government, it also specifically denied Wadley’s
commission to the rank of colonel. Effectively stripped of authority,
Wadley departed government service in-June of that year.

Next came Frederick W. Sims, who headed the railroad bureau from
June1863 to the end of the war. Sims had some experience in the
business side of railroading, and he had served under Wadley for a
while, but he was better known for his activities in publishing and
philanthropy than in railroading. Appointed to the rank of lieutenant
colonel, Sims was able to move his agency back under the
Quartermaster General where it belonged. Although the government
never delegated to him the compulsory powers authorized by the
Confederate Congress, Sims brought to the job a flair for wheeling and
dealing that enabled him to accomplish more than either of his
predecessors. Thus, although neither his expertise nor his authority
was particularly extensive, Sims was able to coordinate vital military
traffic when necessary.

A perennial problem that confronted Sims as well as his predecessors
was the question of rates charged by the railroads for military traffic, At
the outset of the war, the Southern railroads promised free transportation
to the Confederate army. This commitment fell through quickly for the
simple reason that no business can afford for long to give away its
product free of charge. Thereafter, Ashe, Wadley, and Sims attempted
to negotiate the lowest possible rates for government traffic. Although
they generally succeeded in securing rates that were lower than the
charges for civilian traffic, this apparent victory for the military
actually turned out to be a defeat. Because the railroads could make
more money hauling civilian cargo than military, to the end of the war
the railroads preferred civilian traffic to military business. In other
words, the Confederate military paid bargain rates and got cut-rate
service in return,