Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1866-11-22
EnergY.

Brigadier General McCallum, Director
and General Manager of United States mill.
tary railroads during the war, has just pre-.
sented to the War department report, of
which the following brief resume is given
by the Herald: ..
On General McCallum's assumption Of
his duties, Mr.. Stanton gave him verbally
this Napoleonic order: 81 shall expect you
to have on hand, at all times, the necessary
men and materials to enable you to comply
promptly with any order given-nor must
there be any failure"
To comply with these exactiDg require
ments General McCallum organized trans.
portation corps to control the movements
of trains, and maintain the rolling stock,
and construction corps to lay, tear up or
repair railroad tracks, build bridges and
burn them if necessary. In the Depart
ment Of the Mississippi bis construction
corps, five thousand strong, was organized
into six divisions, each a distinct body 10
inself, provided with all necessary tools
camp equipage and field transportation, and
ready to move anywhere op emergency; his
transportation corps numbered IL, 900 men.
Some of the achievements of General Nc.
Callum's department deserves to rank with
the most remarkable engineering feats of
modern times The wonderful bridge over
the Chattahooche, seven hundred and eighty
feet long and ninety-two feet high, was
built by the construction corps in four and
half days; the bridge over the Potomac
creek, at Acquia, four hundred and four.
teen feet long and eighty two feet high, was
built ready for trains to pass in forty work
ing hours In their leisure time this corps
rebuilt the Chattanooga rolling mills, which
turned in few months nearly four thous-
and tons Of railroad iron for the Govern.
ment, and we're sold at the end of the war
for a hundred and seventy five thousand
dollars. With justi6able pride Gen. Nc
Callum classes the attempt to supply Sher-
mans army of hundred thousand men aud
sixty thousand horses and mules from base
three hundred and sixty miles distant, over
one line of single track, as one of the bold.
est ideas of the war. Whole corps, and
even armies, we're frequently transported
hundreds Of miles on the mere verbal or.
ders of their commanders. In 1866 the
Fourth Army Corps we're transported from
East Tennessee to Nashville, distance of
three hundred and sixty miles, without de.
lay or dificulty-this herculean task re-
quirng nearly fifteen hundred cars
Nor were the services thus rendered un.
attended with danger. Guerillas and raid
ing parties dogged the footsteps of the con-
struction corps wherever they went. In the
first six months of 1865 one wrecking train
picked up and brought into Nashville six.
teen wrecked locomotives and nearly three
hundred carloads of wheels and bridge iron,
the destructive handwork of rebel raiders.
Hood was thorn in McCallum's side; but
the damage he did was repaired with won
derful celebrity. In October, 1864, Hood,
passing round Sherman's army, tore up
thirty-fve miles of track and burned four
hundred and fifty feet of bridges between
Chattanooga and Atlanta. The damage was
made good and the line put in working or.
der again in thirteen days. Between Tuu.
mel Hill and Resaca twenty five miles Of
track and two hundred and thirty feet of
bridging we're reconstructed in seven days
and half