AR, A&G 2/1/1863 P

Annual Report of the Atlantic & Gulf RR
as of February 1, 1863,
President's Report
 
Office Atlantic & Gulf Rail Road Co.
Savannah, February 1st, 1863
 
To the Stockholders of the Atlantic & Gulf Rail Road Co.
 
   The President and Directors respectfully submit the following Fourth Annual Statement of the affairs of the Company during the past year, terminating on the 31st ultimo.
   The Reports of the Chief Engineer, Treasurer and Superintendent, present a correct exhibit of the condition of their respective Departments, and afford such information as may be desired in detail.
   The financial year of the Company properly terminates on the 31st of January, but in consequence of its operations being conjoint with those of the Savannah, Albany & Gulf Rail Road Company, the earnings of the Atlantic & Gulf Rail Road Company, are necessarily distributed on the 1st of May, the beginning of the financial year of the former Company. The total proceeds of the Road are, therefore, stated to the 1st of May last, running from the 30th of April, 1859, the time from which it was agreed that an adjustment of earnings should begin between the two Companies. The first settlement was made on the 1st of May, 1861, and $48,444.63 were then passed to the credit of this Company. On the 1st of May last, (1862), $27,640.11 was the amount of its pro rata earnings. As these earnings are over and above the cost of operating and maintaining the Road, they are considered as nett receipts, and are stated as follows:
From April 30th 1859, to May 1st, 1861 $48,444.63
   "         "      "     1861,     "        "    1862 27,645.11

Total

$76,084.74
   The total joint earnings of the two Companies during the last nine months, are as follows:
From Passage $218,188.06
     "    Freight 154,655.04

Total

$372,843.10
   A tabular statement, appended to this Report, showing the joint comparative earnings for the two Companies during the same nine months, for the year past, exhibits a gratifying improvement in their common operations, and in the comparative prospective sum to be received by this Company upon the annual adjustment in May next. It will be seen that the earnings of the present will probably be treble those of the previous year.
   The cash assets of the Company, and assets readily available as such, are as follows:
Cash in Bank $33,558.20
    "    in hands of J. M. Potter, Agent 5,686.17
    "    due by Savannah, Albany & Gulf Rail Road Co. 64,353.15
Bonds of the State of Georgia 73,000.00
Confederate 8 per cent Bonds 6,800.00

$183,397.52
   To this should be added $50,000, being the amount of the fifth installment due by the State on its second subscription to the Stock. The amount due by the Confederate Government for iron seized to its use amounts to about $50,880, making the total assets of the Company $284,277 50/100, exclusive of the value of the railroad, buildings and appurtenances.
   The Company has no floating liabilities whatever.
   It is a subject of regret, that the active measures adopted by the Board in the early part of 1861 to secure the extension of the track to the Flint River by the autumn of that year, have been entirely frustrated by circumstances beyond their control. Although the contracts for grading and bridging about two thirds of the line between Thomasville and Bainbridge had been abandoned by the contractors, the contracts were at once renewed with other parties, and the work recommenced under auspices of the most favorable character, in view of the financial and political confusion of that period. But scarcely had these measures been initiated, when the present war broke out in all its extraordinary violence, and every available Southern port was blockaded. Out undelivered cargoes of rails were therefore unavailable, and the Company was compelled to release its factors from their obligations. Three thousand two hundred (3,200) tons of rails had been ordered from England early in the summer of 1860, deliverable in the fall of the same year, for the purpose of completing the track to the town of Bainbridge and to supply a deficit in the amount required to reach the town of Thomasville. Of these amounts, two cargoes amounting to sixteen hundred and nine (1609) tons were received through the house of Messrs. Padelford, Fay & Co., and one cargo of five hundred (500) tons through the house of Messrs. A. Low & Co. This amount of rail being insufficient, all hope of extending the track to Bainbridge had ceased, although it was confidently expected that the rail could be laid to a point beyond the Ocklockonee River. But in this we were destined to disappointment. The scarcity of iron in the Confederacy made it necessary for the General Government to supply its exigencies from every source, regardless of particular inconveniences to private individuals or to corporations, and nearly the whole amount of rail remaining after the completion of the track to Thomasville was seized principally to the use of the Navy Department. Thus, whatever credit may have been accorded to the Directors for their vigorous and determined efforts to extend the Road to the Flint River, they have been obviously thwarted by events as uncontrollable as they were unexpected. In the meanwhile, however, the grading has been steadily pursued through the counties of Thomas and Decatur, and as soon as importation of the necessary material is permitted, the superstructure will be laid to the banks of the Flint. It will be seen by reference to the report of the Chief Engineer that of the entire distance from Thomasville to Bainbridge, about thirty miles are graded, leaving six miles 3,920 feet yet to be graded. Although the present force is not competent to complete this amount of grading in eighteen months, it has not been deemed necessary to accelerate the work at present, when material for the superstructure cannot be obtained. It is in the power of the Company to employ a force adequate to finish this amount of grading, before the necessary iron can be imported and carried to the unfinished portion of the line.
   Such have been the intimate and apparently inseparable relations of the Atlantic & Gulf and Savannah, Albany & Gulf Rail Road Companies, that a consolidation of the two has for sometime past been a subject of the most earnest consideration to the Directors of both companies. Finally in November last, a Bill was prepared with this object to be laid before the General Assembly. Unfortunately before any Legislative action could be taken the General Assembly was adjourned, and the subject deferred to a future session. The expediency and propriety of the measure can scarcely admit of argument. The object of the two enterprises are practically one and the same, the point of separation of the tracks of the two railways is literally mathematical, one being merely a continuation of the other. The two lines are operated with the same Rolling Stock, and in every respect, admissible under the conditions of distinct charters, the two companies bear to each other the actual relations of an intimate partnership. The disadvantages of such relations, however unimportant, so long as harmony of feeling and strict agreement of views as to their common purposes exist between the companies, may, at any time and upon trivial occasion seriously impair the prosperity of both. As it is, the present arrangement of their affairs demands the nicest adjustment of accounts of the most complicated character, and upon a basis, which, though carefully just and equitable in its provisions for both, may not always prove satisfactory to one or the other, and from which it may be impossible to make any acceptable change. If it be of importance to reduce the common interests of the two companies to a fixed and unchangeable harmony, it would seem most judicious to consolidate them at once into a permanent, legalized unity.
   Economically considered, such an union presents the most obvious and important advantages. Dissever the two Companies, and each would be driven to the heavy expenditure necessary to purchase and maintain separate equipments of all kinds, (amounting absolutely to double the quantity necessary for the operation of both, when working together,) and to the maintenance of separate corps of officers, clerks, and depot operatives. Upon the Atlantic & Gulf Rail Road Company, would devolve the excess of the burthen just now named, while that company would be forced to an enormous expenditure for adequate warehouses, offices, shops, and fixed machinery, at one or the other of its termini, or both. All this expenditure so readily avoided and seemingly so unnecessary to be incurred, amounting to perhaps a little short of a million of dollars, would be better devoted in carrying out the greater objects of both companies and in extending the Road to a point where its successful results will be beyond all mere speculation. The Atlantic & Gulf Rail Road is not now the great thoroughfare of commerce and travel for which it was projected, and cannot become such, until its lateral connections are fully established and it attains its terminus on the Gulf of Mexico.
   Can such a consolidation prove injurious to either one Company or the other? The Savannah, Albany & Gulf Rail Road Company stands entirely cleared of every dollar of floating liability. The Atlantic & Gulf Rail Road Company stands in the same fortunate position, even while its road is still in process of construction, all of its grading completed and paid for, excepting about six and a half miles, and with abundant means to meet the cost of the remainder and to go far towards meeting the expense of the superstruction of the whole division between Thomasville and Bainbridge. The funded debt of the Savannah, Albany & Gulf Rail Road Company is $300,000, payable in 1879, and amply secured by the endorsement of the city of Savannah. The funded debt of the Atlantic & Gulf Rail Road Company amounts to $500,000, payable in 1881. With no floating liabilities existing against either corporation, and with every prospect of an easy liquidation of funded liens which cannot embarrass the profitable operations of either Road, there can be no fundamental financial obligation to an union of the two institutions.
   Nor is there any condition in the charter of either corporation in conflict with such a proposition, so far as their separate interests are concerned. If there be any, let it remain unchanged so far as it may pertain to either Company. If the State has been careful in guarding her interests, and those of her citizens, in the charter of the Atlantic & Gulf Rail Road Company, let the protectives she has established in granting the charter remain untouched. They do not and cannot endanger the welfare of either Company, nor embarrass the accomplishment of the great objects for which both were created. In fine, the proposed consolidation can only result in a concentration of capital for the public good, in the enhancement of the common credit of both institutions, and in the harmonious pursuit of a policy which no dissensions could be permitted to weaken, and which is now bringing and will continue to bring abundant prosperity to every interest within its influence.
   The Stockholders of the Atlantic & Gulf Rail Road may look with reasonable pride upon the results of their enterprise. In the brief space of two years, a first class railway, 132 miles in length, has been constructed across a country sparsely populated and comparatively unknown. Within three years after the track-laying had begun at the Satilla river, and while two of these years have been stormy with the confusion of a grand civil war, diminishing every industrial resource, disturbing the established equilibrium of every interest, and distracting the moral attention of every class of labour -- in despite of all this, and in this brief period, the borders of the Atlantic & Gulf Rail Road have been lined with busy Saw Mills, new and prosperous villages and towns have reared their school-houses, churches, and dwellings around its stations, and far over the country, through which the road has penetrated, are spreading the cheerful indications of general improvement. The Brunswick & Albany Rail Road has already connected at Tebeauville -- the Macon & Brunswick Rail Road is hastening to its destined crossing and terminus -- the Florida branch of the Savannah, Albany & Gulf Rail Road from Lawton (Station 12,) is graded and ready for the rail, making 264 miles of Rail Roads already connected and about to connect with the Atlantic & Gulf Rail Road. The Atlantic & Gulf Rail Road itself steadily advances toward the western boundary of the State and only waits a time of national peace "to connect the Atlantic with the Gulf of Mexico." The Depots of the Road are filled with freight, its passenger trains with travelers, the Company does not owe a dollar of floating debt, and its assets are abundant to carry out every immediate purpose of its enterprise.
   Such results are proper subjects of congratulation, and should be sufficient to excite cheerful expectations of the ultimate prospects of the Company. But it is to be remembered, that travel has been stimulated by contingencies growing out of the war, and that its present amount is not therefore a proper criterion of that which may be presented in time of peace. The increased amount of freight is not regarded as extra-ordinary or illegitimate, consisting as it does mainly of the necessities of life, merely taking the place to a large extent of the cotton, which would have been transported, had it been produced in its usual quantity, or in the quantity commensurate with the development of the country. A very large ratio of the productive labor of the country through which the road passes having been diverted to the army, there is perhaps no good reason to believe otherwise, than that the amount of freight for the past year would have been increased still more had this productive labour remained undisturbed.
John Screven
President

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