The Construction of the Montgomery & Columbus Railroad

The Construction of the Montgomery & Columbus Railroad

The Confederate railroads east of the Mississippi River were all of one gauge or another (4’ 8 ½” or 5’), with the two blocks of like gauge meeting in North Carolina and Virginia. The only exception to this general statement was the Montgomery & West Point Railroad in Alabama. This eighty-eight mile road was an essential part of the lower east-west line of railroads that the Confederacy tried to establish. With this one exception, it was possible to run rolling stock from the Mississippi River to Charlotte without having to unload and reload the cars (though this rarely happened because of the desire of each road to retain its cars under its own control). Unfortunately, this one road steadfastly refused to change its gauge to match the rest of the roads south of Charlotte. Railroad men and the Government, rather than force the gauge change, sought a way around this bottleneck.

The solution was a road from Montgomery to Columbus, using the Montgomery & Eufaula Railroad to Union Springs, Ala. and the Mobile & Girard from there to Columbus. Since the latter road was in full operation, only the Montgomery to Union Springs section was discussed in documents regarding required construction work.

The Montgomery & Eufaula Railroad had been chartered in January 1860 and had laid about ten miles of track. The road had one locomotive and probably a handful of cars to support construction. Its projected route would require a total of about eighty-eight miles of track to connect to the South Western Railroad at Eufaula. While the road had little money and no more iron, it used its twenty-five construction slaves to continue the grading throughout the war.

With the war in northern Georgia going badly, the threat to the railroads connecting at Atlanta became so serious that a route south of Atlanta became of great interest. If traffic could go from Montgomery to Columbus, it could proceed to Macon and then either Augusta or Savannah and on to the rest of the east.

The first mention of constructing this segment in order to create the new line is in a July 26, 1864 order from Chief Engineer Major General J. F. Gilmer to Lieutenant Colonel Minor Meriwether to report on the connection of Montgomery to Columbus by way of Union Springs. This possibility had been mentioned by General Bragg in a letter to President Davis’ aide on the 23^rd and it had been forwarded to the Engineer Bureau for a report.

Over the next two months, the pressure in Richmond grew for an answer on whether this project was possible. A report was produced, which has not survived, stating that $450,000 would be required to complete the work to Union Springs, about thirty-five miles. General Richard Taylor reported to Alabama Governor Walls that it appeared that Richmond could not advance the money and he urged the state to look for the money. Taylor said, on September 30^th, that the iron had been secured for the project and that “practical” railroad men said the road could be completed in ninety days. The railroad company was willing to work on the job on the condition that three fourths of the charges against the government would be applied to the required loan and the remaining fourth paid to the company.

On October 5^th, Quartermaster Major T. J. Noble reported to Richmond that while they were waiting on whether to start the work, General Taylor had ordered him to collect the tools that would be required. Two weeks later, Commissary Major W. H. Smith, on an inspection tour, reported to Richmond that Major Walker had said that the iron had been obtained, though Lieutenant Colonel Sims, head of the Railroad Bureau said that was not so. Major Smith pressed hard for the road to be built because of the very poor condition of the Montgomery & West Point road.

On the 15^th, General Taylor’s staff told Major Noble that the iron and money arrangements had been made by General Taylor, but that Secretary of War Seddon insisted that the iron was not available. General Taylor had telegraphed the Secretary, but no reply had been received. It may well have been that Seddon and Davis wanted to see what General Sherman would do next before committing the iron (and political capital). Sherman would leave Atlanta for his march to the sea on November 15^th. It was Seddon’s contention that the proposed connection was a temporary and secondary project.

Quartermaster General Lawton wrote Engineer Gilmer that he had written General Taylor that the money could be found, if the iron was available. He said that the Engineer Bureau said that all the iron east of Mississippi was required to keep the main roads in operation. He asked General Taylor if he could get the iron from Mississippi. He also noted that the animals necessary to assist the construction would be hard to come by because of army requirements.

On November 11^th, Montgomery & Eufaula Railroad Chief Engineer James M. Gray reported to the Engineer Bureau the work that remained to be done and the facilities he had to assist the project. Unfortunately for the curious, the report has not survived. Meriwether also reported on the same date. On the 19^th, Meriwether also reported that the required tools could not be obtained in Montgomery.

Certainly Sherman’s departure from Atlanta put everything regarding the construction on hold. Within a few days, it would be clear that all efforts would be required to repair the railroads that he was destroying in central Georgia.

The next time the connection is mentioned is in a late-February 1865 report by the new Secretary of War, Breckinridge, to Davis, showing the amount of slaves that would be required for railroad construction and repairs during 1865. Nothing further was ever mentioned regarding the road.

If the political leadership had the will power to do what was needed, the Montgomery & West Point Railroad gauge could have been changed early in the war, eliminating the main requirement for this project. The road could have been completed on the rationale of providing another east-west line of rail – if the iron could have been obtained. Of course, without an army that could stop Sherman, the loss of Atlanta made it clear that this road would do little to affect the war.