Confederate States of America, War Department
| Richmond, Va., April 22, 1863 |
| |
| Hon. James A. Seddon, Secretary of War |
| |
| Sir, |
| I herewith have the honor to hand you the
paper referred to in our conversation yesterday and read before the
railroad conference just adjourned. It exhibits more fully than does
the report of that conference the reasons for adopting some of the
measures recommended in the report, while it also explains the
reasons why I cannot, with every desire to do so, participate in the
sanguine expectations expressed in the report, or indeed in any hope
that the railways in this Confederacy, which are necessary to the
operations of its armies, can be supplied with the rails necessary
to their maintenance in use without much more extensive and
efficient measures on the part of the Government than those
suggested in the report. The accompanying printed copy of
resolutions adopted by a general convention of the railroad officers
of the Confederate States in February, 1862, with the fact that to
this day they have never been put into execution, confirms this
apprehension and gives serious reason to fear that the reliance on
relief from individual or corporate enterprise now expressed will
prove equally fallacious now, when the Confederacy has too much at
stake--perhaps its existence-to incur any risk of such a
miscalculation.
|
| With high respect, your obedient servant
|
| P. V. Daniel, Jr.
{President, Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac RR} |
| |
| [Inclosure No. 1] |
| The undersigned having been invited by the
Honorable Secretary of War to consult with him as to the best means
of increasing the efficiency of the railroads of the Confederate
States in supplying the wants of the Army and country, and of
arresting the deterioration and providing and applying materials for
their repair and reconstruction, respectfully make, in response to
that invitation, the following suggestions:
|
| I. For the purpose of at once relieving the
railroads of the overwhelming amount of transportation now required
of them, and of very largely adding to the means of transportation
available to both the Government and to citizens, the Government
should at once, and as rapidly as possible, have built and placed on
every canal, river, or other navigable water the greatest
practicable number of boats, bateaux, lighters, or vessels of any
kind which can be most speedily and cheaply built and will be
suitable to the navigation of the waters on which they are to be
used. These channels of navigation penetrate into and traverse
sections of the country most of all abounding in supplies of all
kinds most needed for the Army, including forage, commissary stores,
coal, and iron. Among the great advantages of this means of
transportation are these: On railroads only a limited number of
trains can be run at a time. On the water there is no practical
limit to the number of boats, which require no machinery and often
no horses or mules, consuming forage. Had this policy been adopted
two or even one year ago immense additions would have been made to
the supplies for both the Government and the people, while the
railroads would have been able to transport other large quantities
which could not be brought by water, which often require more rapid
transportation, or which have been spoiled or lost from being
delayed. Instead of this being done boats and vessels usually
employed in these channels of navigation have been taken by the
Government to be sunken in river channels or for other purposes of
defense, and have never been replaced by individual enterprise,
which was deterred both by want of men and materials engrossed by
Government and by the apprehension of repeated seizure of their
beats if built. In the case of the James River and Kanawha Canal
alone very large quantities of all kinds of supplies, including coal
and iron, have been withheld from market and the use of the Army by
the last-mentioned cause.
|
| II. Government warehouses or shelters of some
kind, however temporary, if only of canvas, guarded by soldiers, at
suitable points convenient for storing and distributing army
supplies are indispensable to any efficient system of
transportation. The absence of these has throughout this war not
only very greatly delayed and diminished the efficient
transportation on railroads whose cars are detained as temporary
store-houses while they might be transporting further supplies, but
has also cost the Government many times the cost of such warehouses
in supplies stolen, lost, or spoiled from exposure to weather.
Incidental to this is the urgent necessity for adopting and rigidly
and invariably enforcing some more stringent army regulations
requiring all quartermasters and commissaries at all hours and
seasons of weather promptly to load and unload railroad cars and
remove supplies from railroad stations, and furnishing them with the
requisite force of men, with authority to make them work, and other
appliances where needed. The stations and usual force of men
belonging to railroads are totally inadequate to accomplish half
what is in this way needed for the Army, many times exceeding any
business for which they were calculated or adapted, or which they
can have on the removal from them of the Army.
|
| III. Let it be made a military offense, and as
such be rigidly and severely punished, to use or consume [as] fuel
for locomotives cross-ties or other materials for railroad
operations or repairs. This practice has repeatedly very nearly
caused a total suspension of transportation on several railroads,
besides subjecting them to very considerable losses not easily
repaired.
|
| IV. When engines or cars belonging to one
railroad are unnecessarily detained on another railroad to which
they have been sent to transport troops or supplies for the
Government, let the Government by such fact of detention become
indebted and pay to the railroad company owning such engines or cars
for their line at the rate per diem of $25 to $50, according to
size, for each engine, $25 for each passenger car, and $5 for each
freight car so detained from the day when such unnecessary detention
shall commence to that on which it shall terminate, inclusive; the
amount so paid to be chargeable to and by the Government collected
from the railroad company or Government officer who shall have
detained the said engines or cars when they shall next settle any
accounts with the Government. This arrangement will remove very
much, if not all, the reasonable reluctance now felt by railroad
companies to allow their machinery and cars to be carried to other
roads, and secure their prompt return for further use and necessary
repairs to those who are interested in keeping them in the best
condition and making the greatest use of them. Any detention beyond
the time required for the transit and twelve hours for loading and
unloading should constitute unnecessary detention.
|
| V. For the maintenance of the railroads the
greatest and most urgent need exists for iron rails, wheels and
axles, tires, springs, and locomotives, with materials for their
repairs. To supply rails during the existence of the blockade will
give full employment to not less than four and probably five rolling
mills of the largest size, requiring not less than six months to
erect them, and consuming not less than 5,000 tons of iron monthly,
of which 3,000 tons may consist of old rails to be re-rolled, if
transportation can be had for them. To supply the residue of this
iron there must be a large increase of the yield of the mines and
furnaces in the Confederate States contiguous to railroads, or, much
better, to water navigation. But before this could be done very
large additions to the supply of iron could be obtained immediately
from a source which is everywhere accessible and available. Let the
Government through the public newspapers appeal to the citizens
everywhere to collect and contribute for any price which the
Government can afford to pay -- which would greatly exceed what it
has ever been worth before -- all the scrap-iron, wrought or cast,
which can be found on the premises of each family. Let those in the
country bring it to the nearest point of water or railroad
transportation used by the Government, or to the nearest inland
point visited by or easily accessible to the wagons of the
Quartermaster's Department, and let them there find quartermasters
or other agents of the Government authorized to purchase and pay for
this iron, either permanently stationed there or visiting each point
on days of which previous public notice should be given. In cities,
towns, and villages where Government wagons can be employed let
sufficient previous notice be published that on certain days those
wagons, accompanied by a Government agent with means of weighing and
money to pay, or blank forms of receipts for the iron, will call on
each householder in certain wards or streets for such iron as they
may have to dispose of, and let the wagons have on them a
conspicuous sign indicating their object, with a bell or horn or
other signal to announce their coming and avoid unnecessary delays.
It is confidently believed that the quantity of iron which can be
procured by this plan vigorously executed would very greatly exceed
the calculations of the most sanguine. Some imperfect conception of
it will be found by any experienced farmer or housekeeper who will
consider how many broken or worn-out plows, plow-points, hoes,
spades, axes, and other farming implements, and how many broken
stoves, household and kitchen utensils he has seen lying useless and
encumbering his premises, because hitherto their market value as old
iron did not compensate for the labor and trouble of collecting and
transporting them to market, though now worth to the Government not
less than $5 for every 100 pounds. Into none of these enterprises
will individuals engage with the contingency before them of losing
heavily on an investment of capital made at the existing exorbitant
prices for all labor and material, and of being at once deprived of
a market for their work on the raising of the blockade by the
competition of imported rails. The establishment and working of
these rolling-mills is an obvious necessity to the success of our
armies, as essential to the maintenance -- in some cases for even
the ensuing year--of many important railroads. And yet it is the
most difficult problem we have now to solve. Could a sufficient
number of railroad companies even now be induced at once to give a
valid legal obligation to individuals or corporations engaging in
this work that all the rails needed for their roads for a number of
years (say even five) shall be purchased from those undertaking
their manufacture now in the Confederate States at prices bearing a
stipulated ratio (say two to one) to the market price of pig-iron or
of old rails prevailing at the date of each purchase, it is possible
that capitalists might be found willing to embark in these
manufactures.
|
| But the numerous other investments affording
at this time more certain and larger profits, with little or no risk
or expense to capital, would render such a co-operation and
arrangement among railroad companies, if at this time possibly
attainable, too unreliable a resource to be resorted to now by the
Government in its present urgent need, and more than a year since
repeated efforts to secure such a co-operation and arrangement
wholly failed. No single railroad company can or will undertake such
an enterprise, and no joint management and ownership of such
manufactories by a number of such companies could be harmonious,
economical, or in any respect practicable. No alternative is
perceived to the establishment by the Government itself of these
rolling-mills, from which it can furnish rails for the maintenance
of such railroads as it may deem essential as military roads to the
successful movement and supply of its armies. To this deliberate
conviction we are forced, in full view and after mature
consideration of all the objections and difficulties, political and
practical, which are incident to this plan. Of these, at first view,
the constitutional authority of the Government to adopt this plan
will to some appear the most serious, if not insuperable, but if, as
has been readily conceded in theory and in practice, it be clearly
within the scope of that authority that for military purposes the
Government should when necessary take possession of railroads;
destroy and reconstruct their roadways, bridges, warehouses, and
other structures, providing and applying all requisite materials for
such reconstruction; make, repair, and put in use on any railroads
in the Confederate States locomotives and cars belonging to the
Government, or impress and take the equipment of one railroad to use
on another, and perhaps remote one -- in what sense is it a greater
exercise of constitutional power to provide and supply the rails for
maintaining the roadways of these railroads essential to the
transportation absolutely needed for our armies? All these powers
are alike necessarily incident to the authority and duty
successfully to carry on the war for our existence and independence.
|
| Nor does the question of compensation to be
paid to the Government for these improvements necessary to their
maintenance present any difficulty which may not be readily solved
by plain principles of practical equity. Let them be charged with
either the actual cost to the Government, or what the actual cost
would have been to them of such improvements furnished at the same
dates and localities by others, and neither party will have reason
to complain. If the Government with all the advantages it possesses
can be proven to have incurred unnecessary expense beyond what would
have been the cost of these improvements furnished by others, it is
but reasonable it should lose the excess, looking for compensation
in the public importance to itself of the work. On the other hand,
no railroad company has the right, if it was so disloyal as to have
the wish, to avoid such an expenditure needed for its maintenance,
because its ultimate profitableness may be doubtful, although this
may be made certain by a just and liberal rate of tolls for
Government transportation. The disposal of these rolling-mills, and
the possible loss resulting from their disposal by the Government
after they shall be no longer needed for supplying rails as a
military necessity to railroads, will be another grave objection
urged by some to this plan, but is believed to be far more of a
chimera than a reasonable apprehension. Upon the restoration of
peace there will be many causes contributing to maintain for a long
time the price of rails at very high rates. Several thousand miles
of railroad, now either destroyed, worn out, or in the hands of the
enemy, must inevitably be immediately reconstructed, and very
extensive additions to existing lines of railroad will become
instantly equally necessary both to the commercial interests and the
public defense of the Confederate States. The existing war will
leave not only nearly or wholly suspended the manufacture of rails
in the Confederate States, but by exhausting the mechanical labor in
the United States and depriving the manufactories there and in
Britain for so long a time of the stimulus, support, or even hope of
a market, will leave the aggregate stock of rails of all markets
accessible to us much less than it has been in ordinary times, when
the demand in the Confederate States was many times less than it
will be immediately on and for a long time after the restoration of
peace. The import duties on rails which will inevitably then be
imposed, both for the purpose of excluding Yankee manufactures and
of creating them on our own soil, where we have been and are now
suffering so much embarrassment and peril for want of them, will add
to the great impulse which will carry into the manufacture of rails
very large amounts of capital now withheld from it by the prevailing
rage for more lucrative but less safe war speculations, which will
then have subsided, and by the difficulty, if not impossibility, of
procuring the requisite material or men for such work, which will
then both be liberated from the all-engrossing demands of the Army.
These causes will inevitably create a great demand for
rolling-mills, and those which are already completed and in
operation must afford every advantage for profits during the urgent
and earliest scarcity and demand for rails over those which will
have to be then commenced, erected, and furnished with machinery and
put in operation. Besides, comparatively slight alterations of these
mills will adapt them in the hands of either the Government or of
individuals to the manufacture of boiler-plate, gunboat plates,
bar-iron of every description, and other supplies equally needed for
both Government and commercial purposes, so that there is little or
no reason for apprehending any serious loss after the restoration of
peace to the Government on its investment in these rolling-mills for
the maintenance of military transportation during the war. But were
it otherwise, and supposing some pecuniary loss should accrue to the
Government on such investments, the question still forces itself
upon its decision, and inevitably must now be decided, whether the
maintenance of necessary military transportation and the success of
our armies with this risk is not worth more to us than disaster,
defeat, and perhaps subjugation for want of that necessary
transportation without that risk of small pecuniary loss. We may
shut our eyes to and attempt to ignore, but we cannot avoid this
alternative. With an enemy all around us, possessing on land an
unlimited network of railroads concentrating on our frontiers,
exclusively occupying our sea-coasts and harbors, and penetrating
every part of our territory with their steam navigation of our
rivers, how shall we contend with them if we are to depend for the
transportation of our armies, ordnance, and all army supplies on the
inadequate and tedious transportation of horses and mules, of which
the country is now so much exhausted, over miry and often impassable
roads cut up by unusual use and never repaired? Such a contingency
is too disheartening to contemplate; and yet without the prompt,
liberal, and efficient action of the Government to avert it, the
recurrence of the seasons may not be predicted with more certainty
than its early fulfillment.
|
| VI. To the problem of furnishing necessary
locomotives, wheels and axles, springs, tires, and other materials
for the equipment and machinery of railroads, much of the foregoing
remarks are equally applicable, and therefore will not here be
repeated. It is true that many of them might be made and furnished
by the private manufactories now established, if the Government
would relinquish wholly, or even partially, its engrossing
employment of all such establishments exclusively in manufacturing
articles for purely military and naval uses, and for those purposes
would establish its own mines, forges, foundries, and manufactories
of iron. Even of rails, a very considerable quantity would have
heretofore been made for railroads but for this exclusive monopoly
by the Government of all the mines and manufactories of iron in the
Confederacy, and they might now be made if the Government had its
own rolling-mills for its boiler plate, bar iron, etc., instead of
engrossing those of individuals. But the deterioration and
destitution of our railroads and of their equipments have now
greatly exceeded the point at which they could have been relieved by
such expedients and imperatively demand much more extensive and
efficient measures of relief. Two or more extensive foundries and
workshops established and maintained by the Government for the
manufacture and supply of these materials and equipments for
railroads at cost prices are absolutely needed to keep up the
machinery upon them so as to be available for the necessary
transportation for our armies.
|
| VII. But for the establishment or operations
of any such manufactories of either rails or machinery mechanics are
needed whom it is now impossible to procure perhaps in the
Confederate States and certainly without resorting to those enrolled
in its conscription and armies. To supply this, perhaps of all the
most important and urgent want of our Government and people, to any
extent at all commensurate with existing necessities, it will be
necessary to import from Europe citizens and skillful machinists.
This can readily be done by the Government through its agents in
Great Britain and France, who may assure to such mechanics a free
passage on ships owned or hired by Government and constant
employment at lucrative wages after their arrival here; 500 to 1,000
such at the least might be most advantageously imported and
employed. All the railroads and all the manufactories in the
Confederate States on which they are dependent for their supplies
have been very largely deprived of workmen, not only by the ruinous
competition of the Government workshops, but also by the enlistment
and conscription in the Army of such as were capable of military
service, and it will be absolutely necessary, for the maintenance in
operation and use even in its present deteriorated condition of the
machinery of our railroads, that until other mechanics can be
procured from abroad details from the conscription and from the Army
of any such as may be now found there should be most liberally made.
The number of men so detailed would be too small to materially or
even perceptibly weaken our armies in the field, whose ranks could
be very largely recruited from the vagrants, American and European,
who now infest our cities devouring our subsistence, demoralizing
our society, and endangering our peace and safety, while each man so
detailed would perform services more valuable to the Government and
armies of the Confederacy than ten men of his capacity could perform
in the ranks. The neglect and violation of this obvious policy has
constituted a chief--perhaps the chiefest--cause of the present
dilapidated condition of our railroads and their machinery.
|
| |
| [Inclosure No. 2] |
| RESOLUTIONS proposed to railroad conventions held in
Richmond December, 1861, and February, 1862, and adopted with some
modifications, but never put into general execution.
|
|
|
| Resolved, That in order to promote the
manufacture of iron rails and other railroad supplies essential to
the maintenance of railroads in the Confederate States, we hereby
pledge the railroad companies represented by us and recommend to
others in the Confederate States to adopt the following measures:
|
| First. That to any person or persons who shall
first within ----- months from the 1st of January, 1862, establish
and put into successful operation a rolling-mill capable of
manufacturing not less than ----- tons of good iron T-rails per
month of a quality equal to those heretofore used by our companies,
and who shall furnish such rails, subject to inspection and
rejection by an inspector mutually agreed on if not of the required
quality as aforesaid, and warranted to last not less than -----
years, each of our said companies will pledge itself and contract
with such person or persons that it will annually, during -----
years from the 1st of January, 1862, purchase of such person or
persons, to the extent that they can supply them, such rails for not
less than one-fifteenth of the length of its railroad, paying for
the same in old rails to the extent of not less than one-half the
number of tons of new rails so purchased, and the residue in cash at
the rate of one ton of new rails for two tons, or their market value
in cash of the old rails, of or $----- per ton, added to the market
value of the old rails for each ton of new rails, as the
manufacturer may elect. That should more than one such mill be put
into successful operation in any one State within the time
specified, the companies in that State will purchase of each such
mill an equal portion of the quantities before mentioned of such
rails: Provided, That no company shall be under any
obligation to purchase at a more distant mill rails which it can buy
at a nearer one.
|
| Second. That to any person or persons who
shall establish and put into successful operation within -----
months from the 1st of January, 1862, manufactories of any other
railroad supplies, the said companies pledge themselves, and will
contract each with such person or persons, to purchase of them
annually during not less than ----- years, or during the continuance
of the existing war and blockade, such supplies, which shall not be
less in quantity, if of equal quality, than they have each purchased
during the year 1861, at a price exceeding by not less than -----
per cent. nor more than ----- per cent. the manufacturers' prices of
such articles on the 1st day of July, 1860. That after the
termination of the existing war the said companies will purchase the
said articles of the same persons at prices which shall, during
----- years from the 1st day of January, 1862, be not less than 7
per cent. nor more than ----- per cent. more than the aggregate
market prices (including all import duties and charges) of like
articles then imported into the Confederate States. Should more than
one manufactory of any of such railroad supplies (other than rails)
be established within the time above limited in the Confederate
States, each company shall give preference, first, to any such
manufactory first established in the same State with such company;
and secondly, to the nearest manufactory which shall be first
established in any other Confederate States.
|
| Third. That to any such person, persons, or
corporations who shall bona fide commence the manufacture or
the erection of buildings or machinery for the manufacture of iron
rails, or any other railroad supplies, within the Confederate States
within ----- months from the 1st day of January, 1862, who shall
apply for such loans, and shall for its repayment or satisfaction
tender to the company, or companies making it an adequate security
or lien on property, the companies here represented, or hereafter
uniting with them, will advance in money or materials, as provided
in the foregoing resolutions, the amount of its desired purchases
for and during not less than one or more than two years from the
date of such advances, one-half of such advances to be payable on
the tender of such security and the residue to be payable on the
actual bona fide commencement of such manufacture.
|
| Fourth. That to maintain the supply to each of
our companies of such articles as shall be necessary to them before
they can be manufactured here, and to procure those materials for
repairs and manufacture which cannot be procured in the Confederate
States and are immediately needed, the companies here represented,
and others who may desire to unite with us, will send to Europe a
competent agent, furnished with the necessary funds, who shall
purchase for each company such articles as it may order and supply
the means of purchasing, at such prices as such agent may deem
necessary to pay to insure their early shipment to the Confederate
States.
|
| Fifth. That such agent shall be appointed by
an executive committee selected from the officers of the companies
here represented and now to be chosen by the meeting, to whom he
shall give bond with security, to be approved of by them, for the
due application under their instructions of the funds to be placed
in his hands, who shall for that purpose receive from each of the
said companies the funds supplied for their respective importations,
and themselves give bonds to such company for their due application
of the same, and who shall be charged with the entire and
confidential control and management of such importations, of the
proper distribution thereof, and of all matters incident thereto;
and that all such orders shall be furnished to the said committee
within ----- days from the 1st of February, 1862.
|
| Sixth. That the amount of purchases ordered
for each company shall be equal to what they will need of such
supplies during the two years succeeding the 1st of January, 1862,
and shall be not less than $100 per mile of the length of its road.
|
| Seventh. That the prices to be paid by each
company for the articles ordered by it shall be ascertained and
determined by the executive committee by adding to the prices first
paid for them abroad by the said agent the expenses of importation,
including import duties (if required by the Government), and not
including in such expenses of importation the proportion which each
company may be required to bear of any loss which may be sustained
by marine disasters or the public enemies. Any loss by marine
disaster or the public enemies of any of the articles purchased by
any of the associated companies shall be borne by all of the said
companies, respectively, in the proportions which the purchases so
made for each of the said companies shall bear to the amount of all
the purchases made for all the said companies.
|
| Eighth. That such agent shall receive for his
compensation a commission to be determined by the executive
committee, and regulated by the extent of his purchases.
|
| Ninth. That the executive committee be
authorized to employ a clerk and accountant to settle accounts with
the several companies concerned.
|
| Tenth. All articles imported or manufactured
under the foregoing resolutions during the existing war shall be
transported over the railroads of the companies here represented for
tolls, which shall not exceed the cost to them of such
transportation, provided the companies for whom they are transported
shall agree to transport upon the same terms articles designed for
the companies here represented.
|
| |
| A plan for
immediate results toward restoring railroad track and machinery.
|
| First. Ascertain by rapid inspection the
actual wants of each furnace, forge, and rolling-mill -- in labor,
supplies, fuel, and material.
|
| Second. By concert of action Government and
railroad to arrange to work each furnace, forge, and mill to a point
as near its maximum capacity as the present resources of the country
will permit. Especial attention to be given to labor, detailed or
conscript, upon the part of the Government, and upon the part of the
railroads to promote transportation of supplies and iron made.
|
| Third. Classify upon the basis of relative
necessity the most pressing wants of the Government, army, navy, and
railroad transportation, giving precedence to axles and engine fire.
Adhere to this classification and apportion under it all iron
received.
|
| Fourth. Ascertain the most pressing
deficiencies of track, remove iron from railroads to be designated
by the Secretary of War, and arrange a prompt return of the worn-out
iron to rolling-mills.
|
| Fifth. To collect and forward scrap iron to be
puddled and rolled in gun-boat plates, to an amount to be designated
by -----.
|
| Sixth. To intrust to two officers, selected
for special qualifications by the railroads and Government, the
execution of all details of inspection, supply work, and
distribution, all cases of divided opinion to be arbitrated through
the chief of Engineer Bureau.
|
| Respectfully submitted |
| I. M. St. John |
| Niter and Mining Corps |
|