| From the Savannah Morning News |
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| March 14, 1863 |
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| President's Report |
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| Office Atlantic & Gulf Rail Road Co. |
| Savannah, February 1st, 1863 |
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| To the Stockholders of the Atlantic &
Gulf Rail Road Co. |
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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.
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| 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 |
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"
"
" 1861,
"
" 1862 |
27,645.11 |
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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 |
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Total |
$372,843.10 |
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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.
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The cash assets of the Company, and assets readily
available as such, are as follows:
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| 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 |
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$183,397.52 |
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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.
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The Company has no floating liabilities whatever.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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John Screven
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President
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