| The following is quoted from Black's "The Railroads
of the Confederacy." published in 1952. The quoted material is
footnoted several times to the Montgomery, Ala. Daily Mail
issue of April 29, 1861. Extensive searching has failed to find a
copy of this issue of the paper; therefore, we have no choice but to
accept Black's description of what the paper's article included. |
| |
| pp. 52 - 54 |
| ***** But though a vague appreciation of
this must have penetrated the makeshift executive offices at
Montgomery, it remained for the Postmaster General, the plain and
capable John H. Reagan, to initiate the first deliberate effort to
harness the iron horse for war. In April, 1861, he called a
convention of key southern railroad officials, to meet at the little
capital on the twenty-sixth. |
| Reagan's purpose was logical enough; he
desired to arrange definite mail contracts. Even after the outbreak
of hostilities, the United States Post Office had continued to
function throughout the seceded states, and astonishing situation
which the Postmaster General of the Confederacy found as
impracticable as it was embarrassing. He could scarcely bring it to
an end without prior arrangement with the carrier. But before the
railway officers could arrive, so much difficulty had arisen over
military transportation that the War Department became interested as
well. |
| The convention met on schedule.
Represented were nearly all the companies of the existing
Confederacy, save those in Texas and Virginia, a total of four
thousand miles of line. Conspicuous among the delegates were Richard
R. Cuyler of the Central of Georgia, Charles T. Pollard of the
Alabama & Florida and John Caldwell of the South Carolina road;
there even appeared three well-known figures from states which had
not yet seceded: Presidents William S. Ashe of the Wilmington &
Weldon, William Johnston of the Charlotte & South Carolina, and
Samuel Tate of the Memphis & Charleston. The Montgomery Daily
Mail thought it a body "which for worth, ability and capital
represented was perhaps the most distinguished that ever assembled
in the South." |
| The first order of business was a brief
communication from the Secretary of War, containing a tentative plan
for regulating the movement of troops and military supplies. It was
a simple program, conceived in innocence: it strove to order the
transportation needs of a warring people in just two paragraphs. It
proposed first that soldiers should be carried at a fare of two
cents per mile and that military freight should move at "half the
regular local rates." Secondly, the road were to receive payment in
bonds or treasury notes of the Confederate States at par, if
ordinary currency were not available. That was all, and the Daily
Mail reported that the delegates extended their approval "with a
unanimity almost without parallel in the history of conventions." In
the freshness of their patriotism they attached a minimum of
qualifying clauses; one provided that the new rates should go into
effect on May 1, 1861; another stipulated that troops were to be
transported at the official fare only upon presentation of
"requisite authority" from the Quartermaster General, or "other
proper officer of the Confederate States"; a third merely asked that
the Quartermaster General designate the class of certificate to be
used. |
| The convention proved equally receptive
to the wishes of Reagan. In a communication which "elicited high
commendation from the various members ... for its perspicuity and
grasp of the whole subject," the Postmaster General outlined a
schedule of payments for carrying the mails that differed sharply
from the old United States arrangements. The rail carriers of the
Confederacy were to be divided into three classes: "The great
through lines connecting important points and conveying heavy
mails," to receive an annual compensation of one hundred and fifty
dollars per mile; completed railroads carrying heavy local mail, to
be paid one hundred dollars per mile; and short, unimportant, or
unfinished roads not carrying much mail, which were to be tendered
fifty dollars per mile. Though these figures represented reductions
in existing payments, the service was to be simplified for all
concerned, and the costs therefore reduced, by discontinuing the
double daily mails previously operated upon many routes.
Payments were to be made, if necessary, in Confederate bonds or
treasury notes. No specific time limitation was imposed; in any
case, important changes would have to have congressional sanction.
The whole of Reagan's proposal was promptly ratified by the
delegates; they only added a recommendation that Sunday mails be
dispensed with as soon as practicable and a clarifying section which
limited mail deliveries to the precincts of their own depots. The
substance of the program presently was enacted into law by the
Provisional Congress. |
| The purposes of the convention had been
fulfilled in a single sitting, and the next day's session was
devoted to expressions of mutual admiration on the part of the
delegates and government leaders. Reagan visited the gathering in
person, was hugely applauded, and responded "in a speech of great
good sense and ability." The convention then waited in a body upon
Jefferson Davis, to whom the railroaders pledged their personal
support. The pleasure of the Chief Executive was manifest; his reply
proved "very eloquent and interesting" and "produced a profound
sensation upon all the members." Following a brief final sitting,
wherein President R. R. Cuyler of the Georgia Central, C. T. Pollard
of the Alabama & Florida, and John King of the Georgia road were
constituted a central committee with powers to convoke a similar
gathering at any time it seemed expedient, the convention broke up
in an aura of cigar smoke and good feeling. |
|