| From Secession to the fall of Forts Henry and
Donaldson in early 1862, railroad companies, like everyone else
in the South, anticipated a short war, if there was a war at
all. But Fort Donaldson, Roanoke Island, Beaufort and the fall
of the North Carolina Sound's coast towns woke people up. Not
only would there be a war, but the South was not able to hold
any point that the Union attacked. |
| If there was to be war, the size of the South
and its commitment to its national goals ensured that the war
would last several years. Railroads looked at their stock of
repair materials and felt somewhat anxious, but not seriously
so. The loss of Memphis, however, pointed out the weakness of
the Southern railroad "system." In fact, there was not a system
-- only many local roads that were growing toward each other
into what would be a system in a decade or two. Only a couple of
roads had been constructed with a system in mind -- the Memphis
& Charleston RR (composed of half a dozen roads) and the Mobile
& Ohio RR (at 500 miles under a single President, it was the
longest road in the South). The loss of Memphis, in June, 1862,
broke the only all-rail route across the South for good, forcing
east-west shipments onto a much less efficient route through
Montgomery, using steamboats and numerous unconnected roads. |
| By December 7, 1861, the railroads of Virginia
and North Carolina were feeling the wear on their equipment and
the war's damage to their facilities. Ten companies met in
convention in Richmond to try to define the problems the
railroads were meeting and to discuss solutions. Their first
action was to designate a committee to survey the nation's
railroad's needs and then meet to discuss solutions to these
requirements. The second action was to implore the government to
restrict the assignment of the captured Baltimore & Ohio RR
rolling stock, material, tools, etc. to the through routes
essential to prosecuting the war. This action would result in
the closing of Capt. Sharp's Raleigh Confederate Locomotive
Shops, in early February, and the distribution of the B&O RR
material he had brought south. |
| After a second convention in early February,
1862, a plan was devised to supply the needs of the railroads
and presented to the Secretary of War on April 22, 1862. With
strong government support in money, labor and priorities, the
plan would have eventually proven beneficial. However, the
government (ie President Davis) was not willing to assist
private business, such support of business having been one of
the points of disagreement with the pre-war US government.
Without the government's strong support, the man with vision and
power necessary to carry out the purchases and
construction of rolling mills, mines and shops was never looked
for nor found. The government, in fact, told the railroads to
take care of themselves and refused to even give them permission
to ship small amounts of cotton to pay for the imports that they
needed. |
| The South was short of manpower in every
section of their economy, definitely including railroading.
Manpower shortages included mechanics, blacksmiths, engineers,
wood cutters, and track maintainers. It is unlikely immigration
during the war would have affected any of those positions.
However, the Confederacy's shortage of equipment might have been
eased by importation. |
|
Locomotives |
| The American locomotive had been developed to
be the ideal power unit for American railroads. Its 4-wheel
truck forward was essential to ensure the locomotive tracked
around the very numerous curves in American railroad track.
English locomotives, the only ones likely to have been
considered for importation, did not have such a leading truck
since English roads were as near arrow-straight as possible in
order to make the highest speed possible. English locomotives
were also missing the cow-catcher that was on all locomotives
running beyond the depot yard. |
| There is no documentation of any effort, or
desire, to import English locomotives during the war. Besides
not being optimum for American roads, the locomotives were
usually shipped as deck cargo on schooners -- 2 per ship. The
cost to all concerned if the ship was captured running the
blockade must have given manufacturers, shippers and buyers
nightmares. The weight of the locomotives was such that little
additional cargo could have been carried to ensure a profitable
voyage. Finally, as noted above, the government refused to
assist the companies, so the railroads would likely have been
required to pay for the locomotives before they could be
shipped. This made the cost and risk too great for the
shareholders of Confederate railroads. |
|
Cars |
| The space required for a fully constructed
freight or passenger car was so great that no one would have
considered shipping them in that configuration. Cars would have
been shipped as kits, to be erected upon arrival. However, the
South had enough wood to make the cars it needed -- it was the
iron parts that held back construction. Wheels, axles, springs,
etc. were very hard to come by and were the limiting factor in
car construction. There is no documentation of any company
making an effort to import the iron parts to be mated with local
wood parts for any road other than their own. As with locomotive
importation, it appears that no one gave serious consideration
to this method of increasing the needed cars, though one man
offered to run in cars in a November, 1862 proposal that was
refused because trading with the enemy was against Confederate
law (therefore the offer must have come from a US citizen). |
|
Rails |
| Rails were a different story. Rails could have
easily been shipped on any class of ship (schooners were the
main rail shipping ships pre-war) and the cost could have been
managed by limiting the number of bars on each ship. While each
road had its own preferred shape and weight of rail, less that
perfect matches would have provided no problem for installation
or safety. This is where the lack of a strong leader is clearly
shown -- no one organized groups of railroads to buy rails for
themselves, organized the paying for them and placed/managed the
contracts for the construction and shipping of the rails.
Without this leader, the required work was too much for the
roads, who were already seriously strapped for manpower --
several experienced men would have been required to handle the
politics, the finances, the contracts and the shipping. |
| However, it is possible that at least one batch
of rails was procured and attempted to run the blockade. In 2011
an author in North & South magazine, in an
article concerning the Union blockade, mentioned that a salvage
contract had been sought in 1866 to recover the rails being
carried on a ship that had sunk off the coast of Georgia during
the war. Though the location of the request document was given
in the National Archives, no such document is at that location.
Perhaps if was refilled incorrectly after the author had used it
and it will surface again some day. |
| There is also a mention in the Augusta
newspaper of December 24, 1864, that a large amount of
government iron was lying at Nassau and was available for the
task of recovering the railroads damaged by Sherman's recent
march through Georgia. This iron source and ownership has not
been identified, but it may be the track that was mentioned in
the salvage request right after the close of the war. The fact
that Lt. Col. Sims' brother was Transportation Agent in Augusta
lends some credence to the mention. |
| One 24-foot piece of 55 pound per yard rail
weighed 440 pounds and several of them could have been required
to be imported by each blockade runner in 1863 and 1864. This
would have produced about fifty miles of rail for speeding up
the construction of the Piedmont RR and the Columbia & Augusta
RR or repairs to vital lines of travel. Failure to set up and
run such an operation was also the result of the lack of a
leader of force and vision who could get agreement from cabinet
officers and Congress. |
|
Railroad Supplies |
| Many companies east of Atlanta made efforts to
supply themselves with critical supplies for the repair of their
present rolling stock -- tyres, wheels, axles, steam gauges,
flues, etc. Such efforts were mentioned in company annual
reports to stockholders and in random letters, but many
statements are vague and the success of most such efforts is
unknown. A more robust effort to procure supplies was often
thwarted by government officers refusing to allocate outbound
runner space to any non-government entity -- English houses were
uninterested in bonds of the railroads and only interested in
cotton. |
| |
| In summery, the Confederate railroads fought
the war with what they had at its start. Pre-war stockpiling was
only practiced by a single road and was not seen as necessary,
until the war was well under way and the blockade had stopped
normal trade. From that point, only a trickle of supplies made
it to ever more desperate roads. Locomotives, cars and track
were not imported, primarily because the companies could not
afford the losses from the inevitable failures and from the lack
of government understanding of the importance of sustaining the
main logistical means that was supporting the entire war
economy. But a hard look at the requirements of the railroads
and the need to import so much to fight the war brings one to
the conclusion that the government's philosophy regarding
private companies and the blockade would have prevented
importation of enough railroad material to have made a
significant difference in the conduct or outcome of the war. |
| |
| Other pages of interest: |
|
Confederate Railroad Conventions |
| Supplies
Brought Through The Blockade |
|
Confederate Rolling Stock Inventory |
|
Confederate Rolling Stock Production |
| Confederate Track |
| Locomotive
Material Requirements |
|