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Railroads in the Civil War
by Bob Amsler
Prior to the Civil War in this country, railroads
were a new and relatively untried invention. However,
during the rebellion, railroads came of age. They became
both strategic resources, as well as a military targets,
precisely because they were strategic resources. During
the war, soldiers, material and food were routinely
transported by rail along with civilians and the raw
material necessary to keep the war effort progressing.
It was soon realized that the railroads would help to
make or break the Union in this conflict which was so
bloody that the combined total of all U.S. losses in all
other wars would not equal the losses in that war.
When the war began, there were approximately nineteen
million people living in the United States. Of these,
nine million were living in the South, of which three
and one-half million were in bondage. The South was
largely an agrarian society dependent on cash crops such
as tobacco and cotton and, to a lesser extent, staple
crops to feed its peoples and armies. Two-thirds of the
rail miles and four-fifths of the manufacturing power of
the entire nation were located in states loyal to the
cause of the Union. In all of the states which attempted
to leave the Union, there was only one plant which could
reclaim rail which was bent into what became known as
"Sherman's Bowties." The South was at a
distinct disadvantage in men, material, transportation
and productive abilities.
There were more than two hundred railroads in
existence at the start of the war. The majority of rail
lines were found in those states which remained loyal to
the national government. Most of these rails were four
feet eight and one-half inches apart. By contrast, the
South had only about one-third the mileage in the North
and the gauges of the rails varied widely. This meant
that the North could transport more troops and material
to more places with less transfers due to gauge
differences than the South. The South immediately
realized the potential of railroads and used the rails
it had to transport troops from one part not under
attack to support fellow troops in a threatened area.
The North was not so quick to learn this lesson.
An example of this is the First Battle of Bull Run in
the summer of 1861. A large and unprepared Union Army
under the command of General McDowell moved south out of
Washington D.C. towards the rail center of Manassas
astride the tributary known as Bull Run. A smaller and
equally unprepared southern force under the command of
General P.G.T. Beauregard blocked this advance
ultimately aimed at Richmond, the Confederate capitol.
The Northern forces were defeated when Generals Joseph
Johnson and Thomas J. (Stonewall) Jackson arrived from
the Shenandoah Valley with their armies. This
concentration of secessionist forces was achieved by
transporting these troops to the battle by rail.
The South was to employ this tactic for the rest of
the war. The South could not politically afford to
abandon any territory to the North and was therefore
required to spread its limited number of troops to cover
the numerous approaches to its territory which could be
used for an enemy advance. Then when one area was under
attack, the troops would come, usually by rail, from an
area not currently threatened.
 When Ulysses S. Grant was promoted to
Lieutenant General and given command of all Union
forces, he understood the advantage the South had in its
interior lines of supply and the part railroads played.
As long as the North squandered its resources in
uncoordinated attacks upon the Confederacy, the rebels
would be able to transport troops from one area to
another in order to halt any Union advance. By applying
pressure to all points of the South, advances could be
made in more than one place and, in those areas where
national troops could not advance against the
secessionists forces because of their numbers, the loyal
troops would be able to keep the rebels occupied and
unable to reinforce other rebel units. As Grant said in
his memoirs, those who could not skin could help by
holding a leg.
At the beginning of the hostilities, the northern
railroads did not contribute as they should have to the
Union war effort. Most railroad executives were more
concerned about the rates for transporting war material
and the profits they would make due to the high demand
for their services than they were for the welfare of the
Union. For a period of time after the South fired on
Fort Sumter, which initiated the war, miles of track
ripped up by Confederate raiders were left in a state of
disrepair and, while boxes of food and ammunition sat on
sidings, railroad executives haggled with army officers
over the cost of transporting the goods. Lincoln's
Secretary of War, Simon Cameron, who was a prominent
investor in numerous railroads, was forced to resign
because of his profiteering by manipulation of the rates
the War Department would pay for the transportation of
its soldiers and material. Such corruption in the rail
industry prompted the enactment of the Railways and
Telegraph Act of January 31, 1862. This legislation
enabled the President to take possession of railroads
and run them as required to preserve public safety. The
War Department would supervise any railroads taken over
by the government. This act was the precedent for the
United States Railway Administration of World War I and
government influence on railroads in World War II.
Few northern railroads were seized under the act but
those that were seized were organized into the United
States Military Railroad (U.S.M.R.R.). The railroads,
faced with this tough legislation, immediately fell in
line to aid in the Union war effort for fear of being
seized. Profiteering and corruption immediately fell off
and trains began to move in an expedient way. Southern
railroads, however, were routinely impressed into the
service of the national government whenever Southern
territory was taken by Union troops. For a short time,
during the invasion by the Army of Northern Virginia
into Pennsylvania, some Northern railroads were seized
to adequately and efficiently deal with the threat posed
by General Lee.
In order to deal with rebel attacks on Union rail
lines, the North set up garrisons along rail lines to
guard depots and bridges. In addition, large stockpiles
of railroad materials were gathered in certain areas to
be rushed to a damaged area so that repairs could
quickly and efficiently be completed. The national
government went so far as to have pre-fabricated bridges
made of wood in these stockpiles. General Herman Haupt,
the Union's brilliant and innovative chief of
construction and transportation, is the one who
initiated the stockpiling of pre-fabricated parts. In
addition, he used ferries to transport loaded rail cars
to Aquia Creek and his successor did the same thing at
City Point so as to reduce the time normally associated
with loading rail cars transporting them to the wharf,
unloading the cars and then loading the barges for
transfer to the next port where the process was
reversed.
At the same time that railroads were recognized as
benefits to the war effort, the military leaders also
recognized them as great targets for destruction.
General Nathan Bedford Forrest successful destroyed
General Ulysses S. Grant's supply line, the Mississippi
and Tennessee Railroad, South of Memphis when he first
attempted to take Vicksburg. General Grant, lacking the
necessary supplies, retreated to Memphis and, in order
to feed his troops, ordered them to forage off of the
land. When Generals Grant and Sherman again attacked
Vicksburg the following year, they destroyed all five
railroads which serviced both Jackson, Mississippi and
Vicksburg. This prevented the easy transportation of
troops and supplies by the rebels to the scene of the
battle. By the time the troops and supplies arrived in
the vicinity of Vicksburg, Grant's troops were too
strongly entrenched and anchored to be dislodged from
the stranglehold they had on the city.
After the Battle of Chickamauga, when the tables were
turned and Union troops were besieged in Chattanooga,
Grant used the railroads help to reinforce and supply
his beleaguered troops who were half starved. This quick
action by the railroads saved the Union garrison,
allowed Grant to launch his brilliant battle to lift the
siege and prepare the springboard from which General
Sherman would undertake his March to the Sea.
General Sherman trained ten thousand troops in railroad
repair before he left the vicinity of Chattanooga to
begin his attack on Atlanta. He understood that his
lines of supply would be under attack by local
guerrillas and possibly organized Confederate units.
Then, when he began the famous March to the Sea, his
troops were so adept at repair of the tracks that the
rail lines would often be in service within a day or two
if not the same day.
When General Sherman cut loose of his supply line
after the fall of Atlanta and continued the march to
Savannah these same troops turned their abilities to the
destruction of the railroads. The troops would pile up
all of the ties from a stretch of track and place on top
of these piles the rails taken from the same stretch of
track. The pyre would then be set aflame and the rails
would soon begin to glow red at the centers. The troops
would then pick a rail up off the fire and take it to
the nearest tree to bend the rail around the tree and,
for added difficulty, twist the rail. They did all of
this knowing the South had only one plant which could
undo the destruction they had done to the rails. These
actions crippled the ability of the South to react to
Sherman's trek through the Georgia countryside and state
capitol, as well as tax the ability of the South's
shrinking industrial base to produce new rail and repair
the old. General Sherman employed these same tactics
when he left Savannah for his march through the
Carolinas.
When General Grant began the siege of Richmond and
Petersburg, two cities close to each other, he set up an
enormous rail depot at City Point from which he
provisioned his army. Without the miles of track,
engines and rolling stock, Grant would have had to
supply his troops with numerous wagons pulled teams of
horses managed by teamsters which would have required
more forage for the horses and more food for the
teamsters. It is possible that General Grant may not
have been able to continue his hold on the cities of
Richmond and Petersburg if the railroads had not been
built to carry supplies from the harbor at City Point to
his troops at the front.
As this article demonstrates, the railroads were a
new strategic weapon which enabled the North to defeat
the South and thus preserve the Union and put an end to
slavery. Without the railroads contribution to the war
effort, the conflict would have been much different and
cost many more lives than the devastating war actually
took.
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