| Jacksonville, Alabama |
| February 6, 1863 |
| |
| General Braxton Bragg |
| Confederate States Army |
| |
|
My Dear Sir, |
| Please accept the accompanying maps
showing the connections which the Dalton and Jacksonville Railroad {Alabama
& Tennessee River RR} (of
which the Blue Mountain & Rome Railroad is a part) will make when
completed. |
| I am aware that it is a favorite
enterprise with you and that you will do all in your power to expedite
its completion. The directors of the Alabama & Tennessee Railroad
at their last meeting placed this work in my charge, and after three
months' delay since Congress made the appropriation, I feel as though
the work should be pushed with the utmost dispatch. A few months with
all the facilities that can be thrown upon the line would complete the
work from Blue Mountain to Rome and open the communication between the
railroads of the northeast and southwest of the Confederacy. There is
no heavy work on the line and the whole amount of excavation to be
done cannot exceed 250,000 cubic yards, scattered over sixty miles of
road, it being chiefly light embankments. |
| By February 22 we want 500 hands upon the
work, and by June 22 you and your staff will be able to make a through
trip, almost without a change of cars, from New Orleans, yes, New
Orleans, to Richmond, in sixty hours. |
| From New Orleans to Richmond by way of
Jacksonville and Rome is 1,200 miles; by way of Montgomery and
Kingston, 1,440 miles, and by Augusta and Wilmington, 1,480 miles. |
| Meanwhile, provisions and tools must be
provided and properly disposed along the line. May I not, with
reasonable hope, ask your cooperation to enable us to carry out this
program? I have this hope Sir, knowing your zeal in the problem of the
day and your ability to work it out. |
| [First,] there is an abundance of
provisions within reach but they hand on high -- the holders insisting
on blockade prices. |
| Second, the government has a quantity of
shovels, picks and wheelbarrows and, if I understand it rightly, the
breastworks system of fighting has been abandoned and the tools lay
idle. |
| Third, again, for the sixty miles of road
we want 150,000 cross-ties and other timbers in proportion. I have
advertised we will pay $.35 per stick for first class ties of oak,
which, in ordinary times would be a remunerative price. The timber is
on the route and overlooking the road bed for the most of the way, and
we only lack a few men to take the contracts and lay the axe at the
root of the trees. All these ties can be let within ten days if one
man to the mile (hardly a corporal's guard) may be detailed for this
service. I have assurance to this effect and how can sixty men be of
more service to the country than by securing the early completion of
the Blue Mountain & Rome Railroad. |
| Fourth, there are sawmills along the line,
nearly all of which are shut down because their owners are away in the
army, which would immediately go to work for us if the above
suggestions are answered. This is a very quiet way of doing the war
but this would have been and will yet be an important arm of service. |
| Allow me to express by conviction that an
early peace awaits us and that a most triumphant prosperity is in the
future for the New Republic, and I am free to say it is the boldness
of your own and other hearts, together with the blessings of Him who
doeth all things wee which has done so much to achieve it. |
| I am respectfully, yours, etc., |
| George Wadsworth |
| Chief Engineer |
| Blue Mountain & Rome Railroad, Jacksonville,
Alabama |
|