| From the Wilmington Journal |
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| January 14, 1864 |
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| To the Senate and House of
Representatives of the Confederate States: |
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| The propositions pending
before the Houses of Congress at its present session, to conscribe for
military service the mechanics, agents and employees of Railroad
Companies without exception, will, if executed, inevitably produce
consequences which must prove most disastrous to the military operations
of the Confederacy. It is well known to all persons tolerably well
informed on such subjects, that from the commencement of this war, the
supply of mechanics in the Confederate States have been wholly
inadequate to the wants of the country, even for military purposes. A
large portion of the mechanics in the Southern States -- probably much
the larger portion of them -- were always Northern men by birth and
education. Of these very great numbers, on the breaking out of the war,
at once returned to the Northern States, leaving still further destitute
of mechanical labor and skill the Southern States, who, even with
their aid had imported so much the largest portion of the machinery and
mechanical products used by it from the Northern States. Few can be
wholly ignorant of the fact that, throughout this war, the greatest
difficulties with which our armies have had to contend, have resulted
from the total want, or inadequate supply of the products of mechanical
skill and labor, and of the means of rapid and efficient transportation.
Fewer still are aware of the extent to which these difficulties
have been felt, and of their effect upon military operations. It is
scarcely any exaggeration to say, that one good and efficient mechanic
or experienced Railroad officer or agent is worth to our armies a
platoon, if not a company of soldiers. How many admirable plans have
filed -- how many campaigns have been lost, for want of adequate
supplies of clothing, ammunition, railroad machinery and means of
transportation. But the country is now menaced with a further depletion
of these necessary classes of labor by an attempt to transfer men to the
ranks who are ten-fold more useful to the army where they are. To a very
considerable extent this effort will certainly fail. These men,
whether natives of the North, or the South, or of Europe, feel that
their services are of ten-fold more value to the army in the positions
they occupy, than they would be in the army; and that, having for
this reason been heretofore by the Government exempted from military
service, they have lost the advantage they would otherwise have had by
an earlier enlistment, in selecting their associates in arms, and in
opportunities for promotion and command, and must now be thrust as
privates, into any service which the Government may assign to them.
Never to have been exempted many esteem a less hardship. Influenced by
considerations such as these, many of these men will leave the country,
rather than be exposed to the exercise of what they so deeply feel to be
an unwise, unnecessary, and to them, unjust measure. Nor can their
exodus be prevented by any precautions which our authorities can take.
Our frontier is too extensive to be effectually guarded by any police or
picket force which can be employed, so as to prevent the escape of one
out of ten attempting it. Daily experience proves this. These men are
encumbered with little property, and that they would secretly convert
into specie, producing a further injury to the country by its
exportation. All this has been done already by a very
considerable number of mechanics in the Confederacy. Every encouragement
and facility has been and will be extended to them by the enemy, who
know but too well, however blind to the important fact our own
authorities may be, that they inflict upon the Confederacy the most
vital blow, by depriving it of any of its mechanical force. Ten. Grant
is said to have shown his appreciation of this efficient means of
weakening our army, by enticing from Atlanta or Memphis a considerable
number of valuable and skillful mechanics. So far from restricting,
a wise and safe policy would expand the scope of exemptions of
mechanics and railroad men commensurately with the extension of the
conscription. When the conscription was most limited, it was scarcely
possible to obtain a sufficient number of men to conduct efficiently our
railroads, which are so essential to our military success. How then can
they be possibly procured, when the conscription is extended over all
those, who had been with great difficulty obtained without the pale of
the former conscription. |
| It is the idle dream of
theorists and declaimers to substitute disabled soldiers or others
incapable of military service for men educated for, and employed in,
these pursuits. The simplest of them requires are more peculiar skill
and experience than the inexperienced can be made to understand. And
nothing is more certain than that men unfit for military service, are
wholly unfit for the employment on railroads. Actual experience has
established this beyond doubt. This blind zeal to put every male in the
army can only increase the number to be fed, armed and clothed, while it
destroys the only resources for transporting troops, food, arms or
clothes for them -- already inadequate for the armies of the field. At
this time, with the existing laws and military regulations, the
efficiency and capacity of every railroad in the Confederacy is very
greatly diminished for want of suitable men to operate and keep them in
repair. The employment of inexperienced men produces confusion, and
multiplies collisions and accidents, while the want of mechanics keeps a
large portion of machinery and cars useless for want of repairs. Take
any considerable number of the railroad employees remaining, and the
operations of the railroads MUST CEASE. Let the Government undertake to
carry them on with disabled soldiers, boys or old men, without
experience or skill, and but a few months or weeks will suffice to show
the last train run on the last railroad in the Confederacy. No agencies
have been more efficient and necessary in carrying out this war than the
railroad companies. Adopt the measures proposed, and not only will you
inflict widespread loss on stockholders, (many of them soldiers in the
army,) but you put an end to railroad transportation. What substitute
for it can be had? It requires one thousand wagons and drivers, and four
thousand horses, to transport five days what a Railroad train can in
one, or five times that number to do it one day. Where are these to come
from, when enough for the other wants of the army cannot be had? |
| With those best acquainted
with the condition and resources of our Railroads, including the
officers of government having special charge of Railroad transportation,
it has been long a subject of most anxious consideration by what means
these agencies can be maintained in operation with every fostering care
and aid which the Government can bestow on them; and all are oppressed
with the apprehension that not a few of them must be abandoned with each
successive year of this war. What then must be the result, and how soon
must it occur, when the Government, instead of fostering, still further
cripples and destroys them? Already the Government has a Bureau of the
War Department superintending Railroad transportation. Let the officers
of that Bureau be consulted as to the effect of the proposed measures.
They are impartial, and they are informed on this subject. But let not a
blind zeal for swelling the numbers of the army, or a prejudice against
Railroad companies, (who were the first to sustain this Government by
offering to perform its transportation at half rates of toll, and
receive payment in Government bonds and notes when they had no market
value,) precipitate the country and its armies into irretrievable
disaster. |
| P. V. Daniel, Jr., Pres R. F. & P. R. R.
Co. {Richmond, Fredericksburg &
Potomac RR} |
| Charles Ellis, Pres. R. & P. R. R. Co.
{Richmond & Petersburg RR} |
|
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| The undersigned endorse fully
the foregoing address to Congress believing the statements set forth
therein to be facts, our experience fully demonstrating them to be so. |
| S. D. Wallace, Pres't. W. & W. R. R.
{Wilmington & Weldon RR} |
| S. L. Fremont, Ch'f Eng. & Supt. W. & W. R.
R. |
| Thos. D. Walker, Pres't W. & M. R. R.
{Wilmington & Manchester RR} |
| Henry M. Drane, Genl'l Supt. W. & M. R. R. |
|