| From the New York Times |
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| March 30, 1863 |
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| Railroads in the South |
| Their Advantage in the Rebels -- The Probable Effect of
Cutting the Main Lines -- The Roads Fast Wearing Out -- The
Impossibility of Repairing Them |
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Correspondence of the New York Times |
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Washington, Thursday, March 25, 1863 |
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The net-work of Railroads with which the South had been
checkered prior to the commencement of the rebellion was as
essential to the prolongation of the contest as the great
accumulation of arms and munitions of war which the traitors in
Buchanan's Cabinet had provided at the expense of the Government.
Without these railroads, which sweep across the disaffected region
in all directions, the leaders of the rebellion would find it
utterly impossible to mass large armies together, for the simple
reason that it would be impossible to feed them. If the rebellion
had occurred ten years sooner, it could not have held out aginst the
power of the Government six months -- had any such power been called
out as we now have in the field and on the waves. For ten years ago,
if the North was not so well provided as it is at the present day
with the facilities of transportation, it nevertheless had every
needful resource in this respect, it had then the great rivers, the
ocean, and every essential railroad line which it now possesses.
While these facilities of concentrating armies and munitions of war
upon the Southern borders, and even in the heart of the Southern
country, upon the banks of the Mississippi would then have been
nearly or quite equal to what they now are, the absence of Southern
railroads would have presented no greater obstacle to an advance
than the rebels at this day everywhere throw in our way, by
destroying their roads whenever they are compelled to retreat. |
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Railroads are of incalculable value to a people for
defensive purposes, but they afford no facilities to the invader. It
is, therefore, must lucky for the revels -- if it can be considered
lucky to prolong a hopeless contest in such a cause as that in which
they are engaged -- that they postponed their diabolical enterprise
until their great lines of railroad, which traverse the South from
Memphis to Charleston, and from Northeastern Virginia, by several
routes, to New Orleans, were completed. Especially important to them
has been the road connecting Richmond with the Southwest, through
Knoxville, in Tennessee. Without this spinal artery, which has kept
up the circulation between the extremities and supplied the sinews
of war at every moment of pressing need, the back-bone of the
rebellion might have been broken in a single campaign. The devoted
Unionists of East Tennessee could have been relieved and armed for
defence, and the traitor conspiracy would have been paralyzed at a
single blow. |
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But these facts of the past are irreversible; and that
which remains to us is to profit by the lesson they teach. We cannot
turn back the wheels of time so as to precipitate the contest before
the system of Southern railroads was completed. Nor can we prevent
them from using the railroads which are in their possession; but we
at least have the advantage of knowing the secret of their strength,
and we can assail them at their most vulnerable points. What the
veins and arteries are to the animal frame, railroads are to the
rebellious States. In the one case, if the jugular or the aorta be
cut, the animal dies immediately. In the other, if the main lines
connecting Virginia with the Southwest through East Tennessee, and
with the South through Weldon, be broken up, the Confederacy will
perish from instant paralysis. But of these great lines of
communication, by far the most essential to the rebels is that which
passes through East Tennessee. That region of country is known to be
filled with men loyal to the Union, who have suffered such horrors
for their devotion to country as the Hollanders of the age of
Phillip II knew, or the Poles of our day. |
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In this connection it is gratifying to note the fact that
these Southern railroads, all-important as they are to the rebels,
are rapidly giving way under the wear and tear of the military
management to which they are subjected, and in the absence of
materials of repair in consequence of the blockade. The Richmond
Examiner, of the 18th inst., devotes one of its most lugubrious
articles to this topic. It declares that: |
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"It is a fact, as well known to the enemy as to
ourselves, that all the country in the vicinity of our armies has
long been stripped of its provisions and forage, and that these
armies depend for their existence and maintenance of their present
positions upon the railroads. The railroads of this State are on the
point of wearing out. They have decreased their speed to ten miles
an hour as a maximum rate, and are carrying twenty five to fifty per
cent. les tonnage than formerly. * * The wood-work of the roads has
rotted, and the machinery has worn out. * * We are not informed of
the actual condition of the railroads in the more Southern States,
but conceive they are little better off than our own, except in the
matter of negro labor. * * Railroad are a part, and an indispensable
part, of our military system, and if they are allowed to fall
through from any cause, Government and people may prepare for the
retreat of our armies, and the surrender of much of the valuable
country now in our possession." |
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This breaking down of the Southern railroad system is one
of the most cheering facts of the day. The Examiner affects
to blame its rebel Government for neglecting to keep up the
railroads, and to attribute their dilapidation to "the stringent
enforcement of the Conscription law as to railroad employees;" and
to the scarcity of labor as it regards Virginia, in consequence of
the facilities the slaves enjoy of "escaping to the enemy." It hopes
things are better, in this last respect, in the Southwest. But the
truth is, the railroads are too obviously essential to the rebel
military operations to have been overlooked or neglected. No doubt
everything has been done that could be done under the circumstances
to keep them in repair. But being excluded from trade with the
North, and with Europe, by the blockade, they have been unable to
procure railroad iron, cars, engines, and a thousand things
essential to a railroad, the number and variety of which cannot be
imagined except by a people cut off from communications with
countries where manufacturing is carried on. |
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The rebels may keep up a supply of arms by clandestine
importations and by domestic manufacture, but it will be impossible
for them to import railroad iron, engines, and cars, to supply the
wear of two years of war. From this cause alone, the rebellion must
break down, if the Government fails to precipitate its downfall
vigorous assaults. |
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In densely populated countries, great armies have been
maintained without railroads, and long before railroad were thought
of; but in a sparsely peopled and exhausted country, such as the
South now is, the thing is impossible -- especially in competition
with a powerful commercial and manufacturing nation which, with it
iron-clad gunboats, can penetrate the Southern harbors and rivers,
and use them to better advantage than the South itself. |
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The Government has the additional advantage over the
rebels, that it can, as its armies advance, repair the Southern
railroads, and use them to keep up communication with the loyal
States. In this way, their great resource for defence may be turned
against them. It may be hoped that the admission made by the rebel
paper as to the vital importance of their railroads, will reawaken
our military authorities to the same fact, and that every energy
will be directed to an assault upon the main line, which passes
through Knoxville, Tenn. |
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S. |
| {found at www.
nytimes.com} |
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