The Construction of the Lawton & Live Oak Railroad

The Construction of the Lawton & Live Oak Railroad

Except for the Alabama & Florida Railroads, Florida was not connected to the railroad system of the rest of the Confederacy. The Georgia railroad men wanted to effect a connection in order to increase the traffic on their roads and through Savannah. The Florida railroad men did not want a connection for exactly the same reason – they were afraid their freight traffic would flow to Savannah, rather than to Jacksonville and, to a smaller extent, other Florida ports.

The Confederate army put a thumb on the scale in favor of building a connection. The pre-war Florida real estate salesmen had sold the idea that Florida was a perfect place for cattle ranching on a grand scale, so the Commissary Department wanted to tap this reputed mass of cattle to feed the army. The Department Commanders wanted the connection so that troops could be used in Georgia and South Carolina and rushed to Florida to serve there only if the state was under attack.

The Savannah, Albany & Gulf Railroad (later the Atlantic & Gulf Railroad) had long had a plan to build a connection from a station on their road to a station on the Pensacola & Georgia Railroad. Though they had two preferred locations for this connecting route, the pressure to get one built led them to accept the eastern route of fifty miles from Lawton Station south to Live Oak Station. By May 1861, the route had been agreed to and construction started; work was expected to be completed by July, 1862.

The route selected was on level country with sandy soil that would require little work to make a fine road bed. The area was almost unbroken virgin pine forests, perfect for ties, buildings and bridges. No significant waterways had to be crossed. These factors led the Savannah railroad to predict a cost of less than $9,000 per mile for construction, far less than for most railroads. President John Screven was anxious to get construction started.

The Pensacola & Georgia Railroad’s President, Edward Houstoun, wrote Secretary of War Walker in early September regarding the construction job. He said the Florida side was under contract, but he did not have the iron for their side of the road. He claimed the required iron was for sale in Savannah, but he did not have the cash required to buy it. He requested the Government advance the $70,000 for the iron and $15,000 for the spikes and chairs, to be paid back by credit for transportation for the government. Security would be given and, if government freight charges did not cover the amount advanced, the company would pay off the amount remaining. He claimed that the work on the Florida side was almost complete and could be finished in two months, if the iron could be had.

General Trapier, Commander of the Department of Middle and East Florida, wrote General R. E. Lee in Charleston on December 7, 1861 to push the government to provide the cash advance to buy the iron. Lee forwarded the request, with support, to General Cooper in Richmond. Attached was a letter from the Florida railroad’s Chief Engineer, C. H. Latrobe, containing the following information: the grading was complete except for one mile, all the culverts were in except four, and cross ties for fourteen miles were on the line of the road, and a simple 160-foot bridge over the Suwannee River had to be put up; the iron laying would require two months.

To provide additional pressure on Richmond, the Florida Legislature passed a resolution supporting the construction of the road, General Trapier wrote a letter and the Governor wrote another letter to the Florida Congressional members. Finally, Governor Milton wrote President Davis on the matter. All of these actions were taken during the month of December.

Special order #90, of March 10, 1862 tried to provide what Richmond had ignored. General Trapier ordered a company of the 1^st Florida Battalion to remove the iron from the track of the Florida Railroad and of the Florida, Atlantic & Gulf Central Railroad, all in the vicinity of Jacksonville and Fernandina, and transport the rails to where the Georgia connection would meet the Pensacola & Georgia Railroad. This would provide something like fifty-five miles of track, minus what might have been removed previously. The General also wrote the Quartermaster General, requesting a loan of $12,000 to lay the rails, with the railroad repaying in Government freight service, a proposal that he agreed to.

But such a simple and quick solution would not be allowed. For the first of many times, Florida Railroad President David L. Yulee got an injunction from a local judge to prevent the removal of the iron.

The Savannah, Albany & Gulf Railroad Chief Engineer, J. T. Stone, reported to the stockholders on May 1^st that a little less than eight miles or grading remained on the Georgia side. Cross ties had not been furnished, but the ties should be ready by the time the grading was finished.

With perhaps the most powerful man in Florida against providing iron from his railroad to build the connection and the Richmond government not pushing the project, a long period of inaction followed. Nearly a year later, in February, 1863, General Mercer, Commander of Military District of Georgia, wrote the Engineer Bureau about the completion of the connection. The response from Richmond was that the Secretary of War and the Chief of the Engineer Bureau did not deem the proposed road a matter of sufficient importance for Government interference. The opposition in Florida, the great difficulty in procuring iron and the six months required to complete the job all spoke against the project.

But six weeks later, Governor Milton wrote Richmond that the road was graded and could be completed quickly using the Florida Railroad iron. His reason for renewing the effort to make the connection was the necessity of such for the defense of Florida. On April 1^st, the Pensacola & Georgia Railroad’s President reaffirmed, in his annual report to the stockholders, the intention of the railroad to complete the connection, as soon as the iron could be obtained.

Through May, 1863 letters flew in all directions, but no actions were taken. The Florida authorities would have been horrified if they knew that the Engineer Bureau was pushing to complete the connection so that much of Florida’s railroad iron could be taken north to keep the essential lines in operation.

Letters, proposals, arguments, threats and rebuttals continued without let up until Union activity out of Jacksonville focused attention on getting a resolution. But just as the Government was ready to make a contract with the railroads, President Screven (of the newly named Atlantic & Gulf Railroad) refused to make a contract. He insisted that if the Government wanted the connection, they should take charge of the project. The Engineer Bureau quickly agreed and requested the Secretary of War allow Engineer Major Minor Meriwether, a member of the Iron Commission, to take charge.

The Secretary agreed to Meriwether being put in charge and he was so ordered in early March, 1864. Meriwether’s Iron Commission duties remained in place, so he assigned Engineer 1^st Lieutenant J. M. Fairbanks to the onsite project management. Fairbanks had been in the area for some months, partly trying to get the Florida Railroad iron. Now, he was in the middle of a bad situation – he had a military order to construct the road with Florida Railroad iron and he had injunctions in favor of the Florida Railroad prohibiting him taking the iron. Progress was not made until mid-July when the Military District of Florida provided him a military escort and assurance he would not be arrested as he fulfilled his military orders.

Fairbanks must have been able to start work since a week after his protection was assured, he requested twenty-five additional slaves to push the work.

From the moment Meriwether was assigned to make the connection, letters increased in number, as General Beauregard in Savannah pushed its completion and President Yulee fought against the taking of his iron. Except for the Piedmont Railroad job, no Confederate railroad project produced as many letters and telegrams as this one.

On July 16, the contractors submitted a bill for work they had completed to date – ten miles track laid, ten miles track on the cars, 21,000 cross ties, cattle guards, and other minor matters. But by mid-October, the work was still far from complete, with slaves running away from all government projects because they were not being fed.

The road was still not completed when General Sherman captured Savannah. The question arose whether this job should be completed or the effort should be spent connecting Quincy, Florida to the Chattahoochee River. The local commander continued the connection in order to be able to save the rolling stock of the Atlantic & Gulf Railroad. Meriwether asked the same question several weeks later – none of the answers, if they were written, exist now.

On March 1, 1865, the road was declared open. On the 5^th, the general commanding reported that Union transports had been seen off Saint Mark’s Light House and six hundred men had been landed and moved inland. The Atlantic & Gulf’s Superintendent was requested to send as much of his rolling stock as possible down the connection to help repel the invader and protect Tallahassee. And with that request, the war ended.

The Savannah, Albany & Gulf Railroad was so short of rolling stock that it could not carry most of what was delivered to its depots. All of the Florida railroads were also short of rolling stock and it is impossible to believe that the new connection would have provided much assistance in the commissary area. Even if the number of cattle available in Florida had been what was believed, which is unlikely, there would have not been the huge number of cars and locomotives necessary to ship them to Savannah. Lastly, the military situation never called for the use of the road and the troops it could carry. The loss of northern Florida would have been only a morale matter after 1863 and the Union never showed the willingness to conduct serious raids from the coasts deep into the undefended Confederacy.

The result is that a road that was not needed was completed only in the very last days of the war and provided no benefit to the Confederacy.