| The following is quoted from Black's "The Railroads
of the Confederacy." published in 1952. The quoted material is
footnoted to "Report of Railroad Convention, Chattanooga, Tennessee,
June 4-5, 1861". Extensive searching has failed to find a copy of
this report; therefore, we have no choice but to accept Black's
description of what the report included. |
| |
| pp. 54 - 55 |
| Little more than a month elapsed before
a second meeting was held. It was not, however, called by the
"central committee," but by the presidents of the Memphis &
Charleston and the Mississippi Central, Samuel Tate and Walter
Goodman, and its agenda differed sharply from the April assembly.
Secession not only had broken the political relationship of
northerner and southerner; it had divided the American railroad net.
Shattered were many traffic and other agreements between northern
and southern companies, and it was primarily to settle the problems
posed by this disruption that representatives of a majority of the
Confederate lines crowded into a stuffy meeting room at Chattanooga,
Tennessee, on June 4, 1861. The business of the convention occupied
two days. The Montgomery resolution restricting Post Office
contracts to the transit of mail from railhead to railhead was
re-emphasized; nut most of the other transactions dealt with
non-governmental matters. A committee was appointed to "consider and
report on the general welfare of Confederate States railroads." It
was agreed that Confederate treasury notes should be received at par
in payment of all transportation bills. A through passenger
schedule (not train) of seventy-eight hours was arranged between New
Orleans and Richmond, by way of Jackson, Grand Junction,
Chattanooga, and Bristol. Steps were taken to establish a system of
freight classification to be published in a common tariff, though
the arrangement specifically omitted military traffic. Finally, the
carriers agreed, as a group, to patronize "any" southern iron mill
in preference to those located beyond the limits of the Confederacy. |
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