Crossing the Rubicon. Or, if you prefer, the Mississippi: Rivermen strike back
It was mentioned earlier that the railroad had its enemies from the beginning, and most staunch among them were those who stood to lose the most, the canal operators and the riverboats. When the Chicago & Rock Island Railroad built a bridge into Iowa over the Mississippi, despite strong protests from Mississippi riverboat men, a steamer rammed into it at full speed, destroying the bridge. It was likely no accident, as a banner soon appeared proclaiming “Mississippi bridge destroyed! All rejoice!” The case over who had precedence over the river went to court, and the railroad’s position was argued by a young, unknown lawyer who faded out of history, some guy called Lincoln.
An ex-pilot himself, Lincoln knew the river and walked a legal tightrope to prove his case, which was that while he acknowledged (while surely knowing it was nothing of the sort) that the collision had been an accident, the needs of Americans to have free passage into the west was paramount, and he won the case. Or rather, the Mississippi boatmen did not win it, the jury being tied, and the later decision of the Supreme Court was that the bridge did not constitute a hazard to navigation, and must remain. This was more or less the end of any organised opposition by the rivers to the railroad, and the future rode forward on the shiny rails and puffing smokestacks of the iron horse.
Engines of war: the role of the railroad in the Civil War
How naive we can be! When railroads first appeared they were lauded (mostly, it must be said, by their creators and supporters) as the device by which war would be forever removed from the landscape of America. With stunning lack of foresight and understanding, and a sense of almost painful innocence, quotes as far off the beam as the one which called World War I the war to end all wars abounded: Henry Poor, author of the
American Railroad Journal, gushed that the railroad would be
“the agent of national peace” and that
“the certain prevention of foreign war . . . will be one of the numerous advantages of the railroads.” What his reasoning for this was is known only to himself. A joint project to link the railroads of Cincinnati, Charleston and Ohio promised that
“the North and South would, in fact, shake hands with each other, yield up their social and political hostility, pledge themselves to common national interests, and part as friends and brethren.” The
Cincinnati Daily Chronicle saw the railroad
“dispelling prejudices and cementing friendships, calculated to perpetuate the institutions under which we have risen from a mere handful.”
Right. This was in 1843. Less than two decades later, as the railroads reached their height, the country would be at war. Not just at war, but at war with itself, in the bloodiest conflict the USA had seen in its short history, making the War of Independence and the War of 1812 seem good-natured fist fights between friends in comparison. By the time it was over, the south would be in ruins and almost a million Americans would be dead on both sides, military and civilian, free and slave, Union and Confederate, and the country would suffer from a divide in its politics whose legacy it is still struggling with today.
And trains would be right up there in the thick of it, helping to bring death, destruction and misery to millions. So much for the metal harbingers of peace.
As is almost always the case, the military got involved with railroads early in their history, the trains ferrying troops to Harper’s Ferry and to Pullman, but the first time they really saw what the new technology could do for the war effort was during the Mexican-American War of 1846, when they were able to use trains to transport troops to Texas. However this had limited success, due mostly to the poor state of southern railroads and the fact that Texas had none. But when war broke out between American and American, they had a proper chance to test out this new system as a prosecutor of war.
It did not disappoint.
In fact, it’s true to say that without the railroads the Civil War might have ended sooner, had a shorter reach and resulted in less deaths. The possibility of moving troops and weapons and supplies around from state to state in relatively fast order made the waging of the war much easier, at least for the Union, who had the better railroad lines. In addition to this disadvantage, the south had less lines, and the ones it had were all, as has already been noted, kept separate from each other, operating in their state only. There were few if any lines connecting to one another, and even if there had been, the south was also behind the north with regard to wheel gauge, some states using one and some using another, so there was no standard and anyone wanting to go from one state to another would most assuredly have to change trains, which is not something you want your troops worrying about.
The south was also severely lacking in entrepreneurs. No people like Pullman, Vanderbilt, Minot or Huntington to aggressively promote the railroad there. In fact, their only real pioneer and supporter of a networked railroad (he envisaged one line linking Charleston to Memphis) died suddenly in 1839, and with his death nobody else seemed willing to take up the torch he had dropped. The insular mindset of the south, the distrust of the railroad and the worry about slaves escaping or being taken to safety perhaps on these new engines of freedom kept each state protecting its own small railroad and rigidly prescribing its limits, cutting it off from other railroads, even ones which were ostensibly friendly. This told very much against them during the war, when the Union, whose two major lines, the Erie and the Pennsylvania, possessed more rolling stock than all of the south put together, unleashed the power of their new war machine.
If only they had listened to the words of Frederick Law Olmstead, architect of Central Park:
“There is nothing that is more closely connected, both as cause and effect, with the prosperity and wealth of a country than its means and modes of travelling.” Many northern workers had come to the south to build roads (and, possibly, though I’m not sure, railroads) and of course once war broke out they went back home to fight, leaving the south with a critical shortage of labour. The south’s intransigence towards central government told against them too, as they were unable or unwilling to instigate a unified policy of operating their trains for the military effort, unlike the north, where Lincoln passed legislation to create the United States Military Railroads. This mean that certain strategic, important or powerful lines came directly under the control of the government, assisting the war effort and making things like movement of troops easier. In the south, the USMR repaired broken lines, laid track and took control of operational railroads in captured enemy territory.
However incompetent and pig-headed the southern effort may have been with regard to the railroads, it shouldn’t be taken that they failed utterly. In fact, at the Battle of Bull Run, one of the first major conflicts of the war, southern railroads helped turn the tide of a battle the Confederacy should have lost, when troops were sent via the tiny Manassas Gap Railroad to relieve the siege of Richmond, allowing the rebels to win the day. But not only that, the unexpected victory for the south shook the confidence (some might say overconfidence) of the Union, who had expected to win a quick victory and bring the war to a speedy conclusion. The setback showed them they were in a proper one, and it would drag on for years.
However much of the failure of the south to prosecute, never mind win the war was down to the stubborn self-interest of individual states and the fear of acceding to a centralised government, even their own, rebel one. An extract from
The Great Railroad Revolution illustrates this perfectly:
“Early in the war, William A. Ashe, who headed the Railroad Bureau, demanded that the Western & Atlantic, which was owned by the State of Georgia, supply six locomotives and seventy wagons to move freight out to eastern Tennessee. However, not only did Georgia’s governor, Joseph E. Brown, turn down the request, but he threatened to send troops to fight any Confederate officials who tried to commandeer the rolling stock.
Farther south, the head of the Florida Railroad, David L. Yulee, was no more helpful. Although his railroad was unable to operate because it had suffered damage, he refused to allow its rails to be lifted and redeployed to create a connecting line between Florida and Georgia, which was essential to keep the Confederate army supplied with beef. In yet another failure of wartime cooperation, promises made by railroads to provide transportation for free soon proved to be empty. The Richmond & Petersburg, for example, immediately raised its charges when the company realized the line was a vital part of the military buildup for the Battle of Chickamauga in September 1863. “
But nobody ever said stupidity and naivete was restricted to the rebel side. Listen to this: having captured a stretch of line around Wheeling, on the Ohio River, General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson told the Union they could continue to run their freight trains on it, but only between the hours of 11 am and 1 pm, using the laughable rationale that the passage of the trains at any other hour would wake his troops. 11 am, all right, maybe, but what in the hell did the Union Army think the Johnny Rebs were doing sleeping from noon into the afternoon? Yet, they fell for it, and deservedly reaped the rewards of colossal stupidity as Jackson led what was known as the Martinsburg Raid on June 14 1861, trapping the Union trains by destroying the track before and behind them, his men then destroyed 42 locomotives and 386 freight cars, then attacked the machine shops and warehouses in Martinsburg, taking 14 locomotives and forcing the closure of that section of the Baltimore & Ohio, which was a big blow to the Union war effort.
Perhaps with something of a slight lack of foreplanning though, they had to transport the stolen engines by road as, well, there was no track, since they themselves had torn it up. Unfortunately for Jackson though, the raid angered the citizens of Maryland, who had seen the B&O as their railroad, and they switched sides to the Union, which helped keep the rest of the Baltimore & Ohio open. Lincoln, aware, unlike most of his contemporaries in government, of the power of the railroads and how vital they would be to the war effort, appointed Daniel McCallum, of whom we have already read, as military director and superintendent of the railroads. McCallum, as we’ve seen, was a man who could get things done, and, crucially for a commander in times of war, took no s
hit from anyone. His military rank, though only honorary and only to last till the termination of the war, ensured he had the authority to order the Union forces to carry out his commands. With him was Herman Haupt.
Haupt, about whom we have also heard, as in collaboration with McCallum he helped design the “horseshoe bend” for the Pennsylvania Railroad, actually had had a military commission, having passed through West Point, but resigned his commission in order to pursue a career in engineering and bridge-building. His skill, intelligence and understanding of engineering concepts made him the perfect man for the job, and earned him the title of the “war’s wizard of railroading.” His skill in repairing broken bridges and torn-up rails earned him the admiration of the President when Lincoln visited to survey the bridge he had built across the Potomac, erected in just nine days:
“That man Haupt has built a bridge across Potomac Creek . . . and upon my word, gentlemen, there is nothing in it but beanpoles and cornstalks.” Haupt was not a happy man when his trains were delayed, especially when this was due to the arrogance of certain officers.
On finding that four trains had been delayed arriving in Piedmont, Haupt discovered that the trains had been held up because one was blocking the line. This turned out to be because the general in charge had wanted his wife to get a good night’s rest in a nearby farmhouse, and so held the train overnight, preventing others from using the line. Haupt was livid when he visited the scene and saw the lady responsible make her way back to the train.
“I did not display extra gallantry on the occasion, nor even offer the lady assistance. She had detained four trains in three hours in a period of urgency, and I was not in an amiable mood.” Know what you mean, mate. I’d have given her a slap. Him, too. Because of this, and other unacceptable incidents where officers treated trains as if they were their own personal property, an order was issued that declared
“No officer . . . shall have the right to detain a train, or order it to run in advance of schedule.” Nevertheless, some officers persisted: one had to be kicked out of a car he had set up in a siding as a personal office rather than send it back to be reused.
Haupt’s knowledge of bridge-building techniques allowed him not only to erect better ones, but to more easily and quickly destroy existing ones. He developed a system whereby a single trooper, carrying what were called “torpedoes”, eight-inch long cylinders filled with gunpowder, could drill holes in the supports of a bridge, insert the torpedoes, wind out the two-foot-long fuse and light it, giving him time to retreat before the bridge came down. A popular phrase in the war had been
“the Union can build bridges faster than the Johnny Rebs can blow them up”. Now, they could destroy them faster and more efficiently too.
But let it not be said that the south had no heroes. William Fuller, a conductor on a train known as The General, foiled a plan by the Union to sabotage the main line at Chattanooga (yeah, yeah I know) by chasing after the locomotive which the Union forces had hijacked - wait for this, it’s like something out of a cartoon -
on foot for two miles until he got hold of one of those railroad trolleys (you know the ones, push up and push down and they move along like a pump on wheels) till he came to a gap where the track had been broken, managed to find a locomotive, steamed this up and pursued the General until he again came to broken track, got off and ran again until he saw a train going the other way, stopped it, commandeered it and kept up the chase. Eventually the General ran out of fuel, and the Union raiders, thwarted, jumped off and disappeared across the fields. Later they were caught and hanged. Th-th-that’s all folks!