Confederate States of America, War Department
| Richmond, Va., April 28, 1864 |
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| His Excellency Jefferson Davis |
| President Confederate States of America |
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| Sir, |
| I have the honor to submit to you
the following report of the operations of this Department:
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| *** |
| Of all the difficulties encountered by
the administrative bureaus, perhaps the greatest has been the
deficiency in transportation. With the coasting trade cut off and
the command by the enemy, through their naval superiority, of all
our great rivers, reliance for internal trade and communication has
been necessarily on the railroads. These were never designed nor
provided with means for the task now incumbent upon them. They have,
besides, suffered much from inability to command the supplies of
iron, implements, and machinery they habitually imported, and from
many sacrifices and losses in the war. The deficiency of skilled
labor has also been a great embarrassment, even in requisite
repairs. It is impossible they can be maintained in efficiency, or
that even the leading lines can be kept up, without the direct aid
and interposition of the Government. Some of the shorter and least
important roads must be sacrificed and the iron and machinery taken
for the maintenance of the leading lines and for the construction of
some essential and less exposed interior links of connection. They
will also have to be supplied with sterling funds, or means of
exporting our staples to command them, and facilities of purchasing
and importing necessary supplies of machinery and the like. The
Government will have to assist, by the construction of cars and
locomotives, and to give facilities for procuring labor, and
especially skilled labor, oftentimes even by details from the Army,
in which, during the first stagnation of business attendant on the
war, a very large proportion of the machinists and mechanics
entered. It is recommended that by appropriate legislation aids in
these various modes be authorized. In return for such privileges
full command over all the resources and means of transport possessed
by the roads whenever needed for the requirements of the Government
should be established. It may be, indeed is, believed now to be
absolutely essential for the support of leading armies that on
certain lines all the means of transport that can be commanded
should be exacted. The roads should be run under unity of
management, without reference to their local limits or separate
schedules, and with the rolling-stock possessed by all, or which can
be drawn from other sources. There should be the full power of
commanding all this, and at the same time of requiring the continued
service, as far as needed, of all officers and employes of the
roads, so that there should not be even temporary (which might be
fatal) delay or embarrassment in conducting the transportation.
There should be also the power of at once taking possession of and
removing the iron on roads which must be sacrificed to maintain or
construct others more essential, leaving the just compensation and
all other questions of possible litigation to be settled by
subsequent equitable and satisfactory processes of investigation and
decision. The delays incident to previous settlement, often by vexed
litigation, are fatal to the imperative uses which demand the
sacrifice, and if permitted local and private interests will almost
invariably invite them. No reflection is intended on the zeal or
patriotism of the officers or members of these railroad companies.
On the contrary, it is gratefully acknowledged that they have
generally manifested a most commendable disposition to meet the
requirements of the Government, and to make even large sacrifices
for the common cause. Still, the measure of sacrifice which the need
demands is dimmed to their perception by special interests, and is
not unfrequently too great to be acquiesced in without the
exhaustion of all means of procrastination and prevention. The
boards of directors, too, where they would individually make the
required sacrifice, feel constrained, by conscientious regard for
their representative trust, to interpose all the obstruction and
delays in their power. As the immediate possession and use of the
iron in such cases is a pressing necessity, no alternative appears
to exist but to give the power of seizure in the first instance,
with the fullest precaution for after liberal settlement, and it is
earnestly recommended this be done.
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| *** |
| Respectfully submitted.
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| James A. Seddon |
| Secretary of War |
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