"The War Between The States" or "The War For Southern Independence" was the first conflict in which railroads were utilized for (lie large-scale movement of troops, animals, equipment and supplies. Large scale troop movements had occurred previously, by Prussia during the Revolts of 1848 and by France in the Austro-Sardinian War of 1859 but these actions were nothing of the scale of the Civil War. Railroads, by their very nature have proven to be both great benefits and great liabilities. Railroads can transport large amounts over great distances in a relatively short amount of time. The trains themselves however, must run on a specially prepared track which is extremely vulnerable to enemy action by small parties along its entire length, particularly at bridges. The Union moved quickly to organize the extensive railroad assets of the North. In January 1802. Congress passed legislation granting President Lincoln the power to seize any railroad he deemed necessary for the war effort and operate said railroad as long as he deemed necessary. The Southern Congress did not pass similar legislation until March 1865. Armed with this authority, the War Department established The United States Military Railroads - USMRR. The USMRR, under Colonel (later Major General) Daniel C. McCallum and his chief engineer Colonel (later Brigadier General) Herman Haupt, had the mission of operating seized Northern lines and occupied Southern lines in support of the Union Armies. MG McCallum established the policy of only seizing those lines that were absolutely necessary and quickly returning them to civilian control as soon as possible. BG Haupt established a civilian-manned construction corps (The Gandy Dancers, many of whom were black) to repair lines and bridges on occupied southern lines which were wrecked by raiders and retreating Southern armies. This construction corps became so proficient at repairs that it was said they could repair lines and bridges almost as fast as the Confederates could destroy them. General Haupt was quite a brilliant engineer who invented prefabricated bridge trusses (called shad bellies) which were used extensively during the war. He was also an experienced railroad man, who more than once took over operations of a line in complete confusion and restored the line to order in days or even hours. In fact, the record of the USMRR was often the only bright spot in otherwise dark events involving the Army of the Potomac in 1862 and 1863. Railroad supplies arrived when and where they were supposed to, whatever else went wrong. General Haupt instructed his employees that they were responsible to the commander-in- chief of the Army of the Potomac and no other officer. Despite these instructions, interference from highranking military officers, and sometimes their wives, was a constant bother to the USMRR. Southern Railroads The railroads of the Southern states did not have any centralized control until it was far too late to effect the conflict. The lines tended to be short and of nonstandard gauges (standard width between width is 4' 8.5"). These lines were originally laid to assist in collecting the harvest and transporting it to market. Connections between tracks of different gauges involved unloading the goods from one train at that line's terminal and transporting the goods to the terminal of the next line and reloading them onto a new train of the correct gauge. Many Southern cities did not have rail lines through the city limits. The equipment of the Southern railroads gradually wore out as the Confederacy converted the few factories and machine shops which could repair railroad equipment to produce ordinance for the Confederate Armed Forces. This was quite apparent to the troops of General Longstreet' s Corps who took particular notice of the poor condition of the cars in which they were transported to Tennessee in 1863. Mrs. Davis, the Confederacy's First Lady, recorded the deplorable condition of the car in which she and her family fled Richmond in 1865. The Confederacy made little attempt to obtain railroad equipment from overseas or transport captured Northern equipment which there was often a great deal down South. The only examples the author found of this was the looting of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad by BG Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson when he was the commander of Harper's Ferry, Virginia in 1861, and the evacuation southward of seven locomotives captured by the Confederates at the Battle of Second Manassas by John S. Barbour Jr.. President of the Orange and Alexandria Railroad. The Confederate Navy also wreaked havoc on the railroads since the only source of armor for the ironclads was railroad rails, and the only source of steam engines was locomotives. The Southern railroad policy was for the lines to cooperate with the government and each other, but there was no central authority. This policy, when coupled with the South's total lack of manufacturing, maintenance and repair facilities, makes one wonder how the South was able to continue railroad operations as long as they did. The conditions by 1864 and 1865 must have been frightful for the railroad men of the South and one is filled with admiration that they were able to continue to the bitter end. The South did, however, accomplish a great deal with railroads. The movement of two divisions of General Longstreet's Corps from Virginia to Tennessee in time to tip the scales at the Battle of Chickamaugua is noteworthy. The Union responded by transporting the XI and XII Corps from Virginia to Alabama to raise the resulting Siege of Chattanooga. Railroad and Supplies To utilize a railroad for the transport of supplies, several factors must be considered. The first factor is the quality of the line itself. Was the line constructed with proper rails or the so-called "stringers", where in place of iron rails, wooden rails with a thin strip of metal nailed to the top were utilized. These stringers were used extensively in the South by some Northern lines. These were inefficient and often dangerous as the metal had a tendency to detach from the wood and whip around in the train cars and beside the tracks as a train passed over. Another factor was whether the line was single or double tracked, that is, did the line have one hire of tracks or two laid side by side. A double track would make train movement in two directions much easier than a single track. If the line is a single track (which most were) then the number and frequency of sidings or small stretches of track branching off the main line and parallel to it was most important if a single line had to handle two-way traffic. Under these conditions, strict adherence to the timetable is an absolute necessity to avoid messy train wrecks which would block the line for an extended period of time. These factors determined the so-called carrying capacity of the line, or the number of trains per day that could utilize the line. Well-constructed lines with many sidings had a higher capacity than poorly constructed lines with few if any sidings. The construction corps was often employed in improving existing rail lines. The Western Maryland RR was a single line without sidings. During the Gettysburg Campaign, the USMRR seized the Western Maryland RR to run supplies to the Army of the Potomac. The Maryland coal fields. BG Haupt found complete confusion at the Western Maryland terminus at Westminster, MD with teamsters and supply officers running around in circles. BG Haupt put the line in order and solved the single line without sidings problem by running four trains tip the line together, unloading them as fast as possible and running them down the line together. When these trains were switched onto the main line of the Baltimore and Ohio RR at Relay House, MD, four more trains were sent up the Western Maryland RR. The Army of the Potomac never ran short of,ammunition or supplies. The next factor to consider in using a rail line for supply purposes is the terrain on which the line is laid. Terrain limits the number of cars which an individual engine can effectively transport. A train in the mountains of Eastern Tennessee would need to be considerably smaller than a train on the coast of South Carolina. The ratio of engines and cars per length of track for effective utilization was "determined by the USMRR to be one locomotive and twelve cars per two miles of track. This will be the basis for all the calculations which follow. The typical box car of the period had a capacity of twenty thousand pounds or ten tons with a volume of one-thousand seven-hundred sixty four cubic feet. This same car could transport fourteen horses or cattle, eighteen mines or seventy soldiers. The typical flat car of the period also had a load space of two-hundred -sixteen square feet and twenty-thousand pounds or ten tons capacity. This car could carry four artillery pieces and their limbers, four caissons and limbers, four traveling forges, four two-wheel ambulances, two wagons, two four-wheel ambulances, or five disassembled wagons. The typical passenger car of the period could carry between fifty and sixty soldiers. A train consisting of one locomotive and fuel tender with twelve box cars, each capable of ladling ten tons, can transport one-hundred twenty tons of supplies. One hundred twenty tons of supplies is eighty-thousand daily rations for soldiers at three pounds each or daily fodder for nine thousand two hundred thirty horses or ten thousand four hundred thirty four mules at twenty six pounds and twenty three pounds respectively. Small arms ammunition was packaged in twenty-five pound crates, each holding five thousand rounds. A single train hauling small arms ammunition can only can transport forty eight million rounds. Artillery ammunition for the three most common field pieces, twelve pound Napoleon, ten pound Parrott Rifle and three inch Ordinance (or Rodman) Rifle came in crates holding between twelve and twenty pounds each. These crates weighed between one-hundred- fifty and two hundred pounds. A single train hauling artillery ammunition only can transport between fourteen thousand four hundred to nineteen thousand one hundred and fifty two rounds. A passenger train of twelve cars can transport between six hundred and seven-hundred twenty soldiers. A train consisting of twelve box cars can transport eight hundred forty soldiers. Pictures made at the time by T. O'Sullivan , A. J. Russell and others show most trains consisting of a mixed bag of boxcars, flatcars and passenger cars. The massive casualties of Civil War battles gave rise to the hospital train which began as a former supply train which was empty for the return back to the supply point. The North soon developed specialized cars for the rapid removal of wounded and sick to large hospitals in the rear in relative comfort for the time. The North became extremely proficient in the rapid removal of wounded to the rear as the war progressed. The South, without the manufacturing or financial resources of the North, had to make due with the now empty supply train to transport its wounded and sick. The North moved early to use their railroads effectively under centralized control of competent men with great experience in railroad operations, namely, MG McCallum and BG Haupt of the USMRR. The South did not establish a similar command until it was far too late. The Southern railroaders continued to operate in the face of deteriorating equipment, fewer and fewer supplies and certainly long hours at the controls of trains, and it is a tribute to these men that the South continued to have operational railroads to the very end. Back to MWAN #97 Table of Contents Back to MWAN List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 1999 Hal Thinglum This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com