Civil War Railroad Books

'Railroad Maps of North America: The First Hundred Years' by Andrew M. Modelski

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Author Andrew M. Modelski, of the LOC, presents 92 maps from the Geography and Map Division of the Library of Congress along with historical notes. the maps are arranged according to the three North American countries.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0844403962/?tag=civilwartalkc-20
5854

Cheers,
USS ALASKA
 
'Roads, rails & waterways;: The Army engineers and early transportation' by Forest G Hill

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Fascinating history of how US Army engineers, especially those trained at West Point, were instrumental in surveying the railroads, harbors and rivers of the West between 1815 and the Civil War, essentially acting as America's public works department.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0006AV4GS/?tag=civilwartalkc-20

To go with thread - https://civilwartalk.com/threads/army-engineered-rail-construction-projects.150550/
68 / 5949

Cheers,
USS ALASKA
 
As a counterpoint to - https://civilwartalk.com/threads/civil-war-railroad-books.139935/page-7#post-1851182 ...

'Railroads and American Economic Growth: Essays in Econometric History' by Professor Robert William Fogel

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3.0 out of 5 stars
Important for understanding the 19th Century US economy

June 22, 2010
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
In this important early work of historical economics Fogel examines the impact of railroads on the 19th c. US economy, concluding that it was not the main driver of growth, only contributing a small fraction to GDP.

Railroads greatly lowered the cost of transport, from 24 cents per ton-mile by wagon to less than one cent for rail, although the Civil Engineers criticized the wagon rate as too high but the CE's did not include the driver's time. David Ames Wells (1891) gave an example which from which the cost by wagon can be calculated at 16 cents per ton-mile.

Fogel presented an argument that the economy could have grown almost as much using water transportation by an extension of the canal system to include proposed projects that were abandoned with the advent of rails. However, as Fogel admits, the pattern of settlement would have been different. Also, Fogel overlooks the fact that some water routes would have been many times longer than rail routes. Also, railroads were essential for moving coal and iron ore and without them a place like Birmingham, AL could not have become a steel center after the Civil War.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0801802016/?tag=civilwartalkc-20
6021

Cheers,
USS ALASKA
 
To go with post #163...

Railroads and American Economic Growth: Essays in Econometric History
Author(s): Fogel, Robert W.
Reviewer(s): Davis, Lance
Robert W. Fogel, Railroads and American Economic Growth: Essays in Econometric History. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1964. xv + 296 pp.

Review Essay by Lance Davis, Division of Humanities and Social Sciences, California Institute of Technology. [email protected]

For those of us who lived through the exciting days of the “cliometric revolution,” the publication of Robert Fogel’s Railroads and American Economic Growth represented a very major milestone – it was as if we now had proof that we had left the bumpy and unpaved dirt road of the first few years and could see ahead a straight and well-paved highway into the future. (See note 1.) The roots of “clio” clearly lay in the 1956 publication of Cary Brown’s “Fiscal Policy in the Thirties: A Reappraisal” and, a few months later, in Alfred Conrad and John Meyer’s initial presentation of “The Economics of Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South.” Brown showed that, unlike the findings of the then-current historiography, government economic policy during the 1930’s was not an example of President Roosevelt’s imaginative application of the modern tools of Keynesian fiscal policy; and Conrad and Meyer demonstrated that, despite nearly a century of traditional historiography, ante-bellum slavery was profitable and, at least by implication, that, if the goal was to eliminate slavery before the 1940’s, the Civil War was not an extremely costly and totally unnecessary enterprise. However, these findings – findings that have been well substantiated by later research – while convincing to the small cadre of “converted,” were still not generally accepted by the historical profession. Thus, cliometrics did not really begin to flower until the publication of Robert Fogel’s study of the impact of railroads on American growth in the nineteenth century. Not only did it generate a spate of parallel studies (of Russia, Mexico, Brazil, England, and Scotland, to cite only five), but much more importantly, it provided a methodological foundation for the systematic study of economic history and long-term economic growth.

Despite the attention that had been paid to the construction of the Erie Canal, given the role of the national market in underwriting this country’s rise to become, economically at least, the richest nation in the world, and, given the speed with which rails came to dominate the transport network that provided the basis for that national market, it is not surprising that historians had concluded that railroads were the indispensable and driving force behind American growth in the nineteenth century. To the best of my knowledge, before the first annual Cliometric Conference (a conference held at Purdue University in 1960), few economic historians, neither those traditionally nor those cliometrically inclined doubted this fundamental tenant of American development. (See note 2.) Moreover, although some cliometricians may have been aware of the concept of social savings – a concept that was closely related to the economic literature on cost/benefit analysis – none had attempted to measure the savings attached to any specific legal or technical innovation. (Fogel had touched on a similar concept in The Union Pacific Railroad (1960), but his first published paper dealing specifically with social savings was still almost two years in the future – “A Quantitative Approach to the Study of Railroads in American Economic Growth” (1962).)

With its publication, Railroads proved once and for all that economic history, while still depending on the product of scholars “slugging it out in the archives,” could benefit mightily from the careful application of economic theory and econometrics. On the one hand, although the work immediately generated substantial controversy, and even today one might quibble about a few days or a few months, in the long run, there has been little question about the book’s major conclusion – that the level of per capita income achieved by January 1, 1890 would have been reached by March 31, 1890, if railroads had never been invented. Moreover, Fogel’s work also indicated that there was no other industry that was likely to have been more important than the railroads; and, thus, if not railroads, no other industry could have played the role that historiography attributed to the rails. On the other hand, the evidence is overwhelming that, since the publication and subsequent debate over Railroads, almost all economic history has been written by scholars who have either been trained in economics or who have found it necessary to acquire (either formally or informally) those basic economic and econometric skills. What, then, in addition to the central importance of the subject, made this such a path-breaking work? As the title suggests, the book is actually a collection of four interrelated, but really distinct, substantive essays: “The Interregional Distribution of Agricultural Products,” “The Intraregional Distribution of Agricultural Products,” “Railroads and the ‘Take-off’ Thesis: The American Case” and “The Position of Rails in the Market for American Iron, 1840-1860: A Reconstruction.” Any attempt at evaluating the contribution of the book rests on the evaluation of the methods and findings of the four.

If Fogel had limited his work to the last two essays – the two that in many ways were the most central to the then intense discussions of the “Axiom of Indispensability,” the work would have been important; but it would never have had anywhere near the impact that it actually did. In the third essay, “The Takeoff,” Fogel, although not addressing the question of whether or not there was in fact a “takeoff” between 1843 and 1860, in order to operationalize his argument, chooses the first of W.W. Rostow’s criteria for a “leading industry”: in this case, what impact did the railroads have on the “change in the percentage distribution of output among the various industries?” Then, drawing on the best available data – data reported by Robert Gallman in his seminal (1960) study of commodity output – Fogel finds that the impact of the railroads on that percentage distribution was minimal. In the case of iron, railroads, except at the end of the period, accounted for only a minor fraction of the output change (overall, including the later period, it was still only 17 percent); for coal, it was less than 5 percent; for lumber, barely 5 percent; in the case of transport equipment only 25 percent (only half of the change accounted for by vehicles drawn by animals); and for machinery it was less than 1 percent. Thus, for all manufacturing, the railroads accounted for less than 3 percent of the change – hardly a ringing endorsement for what was purported to be a “leading industry.”

In his more detailed examination of the impact of railroads on the development of the iron industry (an attempt to assess the importance of railroads to industrialization because of their alleged “backward linkages”), Fogel found it necessary to produce a new series on pig iron output between 1840 and 1860 and to revise the estimates of the consumption of railroads to account for imports and recycled rails as well as changes in the weight of rails. These new estimates represented a major contribution to our understanding of the industrial history of the period. Fogel’s primary interest, however, was not on the production of the new series, but on estimating the importance of the railroads in the development of the iron industry. His results, again, indicate that railroads did not dominate the development of the iron industry in the two decades before the Civil War. In fact, his conclusions strongly support Douglass North’s conclusion that, from the point of view of backward linkages, it would be as sensible to talk about an iron stove theory of the development of the iron industry as a railroad theory.

In these two essays Fogel demonstrates a command of what had heretofore been the best of traditional economic history, but in neither chapter are there any major methodological breakthroughs – merely a carefully constructed series of new estimates and the demonstration of an ability to bring those estimates to bear on important issues. In the first and second of the four substantive chapters – the estimate of the social savings from the interregional and from the intraregional distribution of agricultural products – Fogel’s methodological innovations do, however, play a central role. First, in both essays, he attempts to explicate and to provide estimates of the appropriate counterfactual – what the world would have been like had there been no railroads. Although historians have long employed counterfactual arguments – sometimes it seems without realizing it – to most historians the idea of an explicit counterfactual was still a very foreign notion in the early 1960s. Second, in both chapters Fogel employs the concept of social savings (the difference in social costs between the real and the counterfactual worlds) to provide a measure of the value of the introduction of the railroad. The concept of social savings is itself an important research tool; but, from a methodological point of view, it is equally important that the measure was defined operationally, so that Fogel’s calculations could be tested against alternative estimates and against possible alternative definitions. As an aside, however, it is interesting to note that, although the two studies are very very important from the view point of methodological innovation, from the point of view of traditional economic history, they are not as strong as the third and fourth substantive essays. In the second substantive essay – the social savings arising from the intraregional distribution of agricultural commodities – Fogel begins by noting that the substitution of rail for water was more rapid in the intraregional than in the interregional distribution of agricultural commodities, and, that, since the distances to be shipped in the intraregional case were only a third as great for rail as for water transport, one would expect that the social savings from the innovation would be greater. To estimate those savings he proposes two measures: alpha (a direct measure of the cost differences with and without the railroads) and beta (an indirect measure based on the difference in the value of the land that would have been economically productive with railroads and the lesser number of acres and, thus, the lesser value of land that would have been economically productive in the absence of those railroads).

Fogel then estimates alpha for a sample of counties in the North Atlantic region and concludes that the direct costs (alpha) would amount to a loss of 2.5% of GNP, and that adjustment for excluded indirect costs (alpha-2) would have increased that figure to 2.8% of GNP. Neither estimate, however, includes the potential savings that would have resulted from the construction of additional canals and better roads. He admits that the North Atlantic region may not provide an adequate representation of the entire country, but he argues that it would be too expensive and difficult to extend this direct measure of savings to the rest of the country.

As an alternative, Fogel suggests that, since water transport was available for about 76% of the land value in the U.S., since, in the absence of railroads, 75% of the loss of land value would be in the four states of Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas, and since all of the lost land could be brought into production with only a small extension of the canal network, a measure based on the difference in the value of arable land provides an equally good measure of social savings. He concludes that the cost of the direct loss of arable land from the absence of railroads (beta) would amount to 1.8% of GNP, and that the total loss – the sum of direct and indirect costs (beta-2) – would amount to 2.1% of GNP. Again, however, beta-2 does include the potential savings that would result from additional canals and better roads. Making further adjustments for the unbuilt canals and better roads, Fogel provides two estimates for the social savings from intraregional trade: alpha-3 equal to 1.2% of GNP and beta-3 equal to 1.0% It was, however, Fogel’s estimates of the social savings generated by railroads in interregional shipping (the first substantive essay), that really touched off the methodological revolution. As in the second essay, the use of explicit counterfactuals and the innovation of the concept (as well as his estimates) of the social savings broke new ground. In this case, however, there were also other very important methodological innovations.

Fogel begins with an operational definition of interregional distribution: “the process of shipping commodities from the primary markets of the Midwest to the secondary markets of the East and South.” While there were good estimates of agricultural production and agricultural exports, there were no data on the method and routes of shipment that were used to move agricultural commodities from producing areas to the points of domestic and foreign consumption; and it is here that Fogel introduces his single most significant innovation. He focuses of four commodities (wheat, corn, beef, and pork) – commodities that together represented 42 percent of agricultural income. He, first, estimates the export surplus at ten primary markets in the west and the consumption in the almost 200 deficit trading areas in the East and South (exports are attributed to the port from which they were shipped). The potential rail and water shipping routes from West to East were easily identified, and the costs of rail and water shipment were well known. To simplify the problem, Fogel focuses on a sample of 30 of the 825 potential routes between pairs of cities in the West and the East. Since the actual choice of routes is unknown, he very imaginatively suggests a linear programming model to estimate the routes – with and without railroads – that would have been selected had the shippers been guided by cost minimization. He then estimates the costs of the inferred shipments, costs estimated both with and without rails. Since there were also additional costs of water transport (lost cargoes, transshipment expenses, extra wagon haulage, time lost because of slower speed and because the canals and rivers froze, and the capital costs of the canals that were not included in the water rates), Fogel adjusts his original cost differentials to account for these additional expenses. His result is an estimate of the social savings in interregional shipment resulting from the innovation of railroads of six-tenths of one percent of GNP, a figure that would have increased to only 1.3%, had he assumed that rail rates were zero.

In this chapter Fogel made four important innovations that were to have a major impact of the nature of research in economic history: (1) the operational definition of social savings; (2) the use of an explicit counterfactual; (3) the use of a formal economic model to estimate what costs would have been had the decisions been made by economic man; and (4) his choice, when it was necessary to make assumptions about the actual world, of assumptions that were biased against his central findings. (See note 3.) Even more than his estimates of interregional social savings, the work in this essay completely changed the way economic historians would do business in the future. There is, however, one blemish in the story. Professor Fogel never actually solved the linear programming problem; his choice of routes was based on what he assumed the solution would have been.

Notes:

1. To give you some feeling about that first decade, one might note that the term “cliometrics” was coined by my then colleague at Purdue, Stanley Reiter – he had been toying around with questions raised by a new discipline that he called “theometrics” (for example, “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?); and, in his joking way, he suggested that the work in quantitative history seemed to be drawn from similar academic stream.

2. Bob Fogel and, perhaps, Douglass North and Al Fishlow, were the major exceptions. Fogel, himself, has said that he began his investigation fully believing that it would confirm the importance of the railroads. Fishlow (1965) reached conclusions for the antebellum period very similar to those Fogel reached about the latter part of the nineteenth century. Not long before this, North (1961, p. 164) wrote, “While the value added of rails was approximately $6.5 million in 1860 and roughly equals to the value added of bar iron, it was dwarfed by the value added of the polyglot classification of iron castings, which was $21 million in 1860. Indeed, the value added in stove making alone was equal to that of iron rails.”

3. For example, Fogel made no adjustment for changes in non-rail transport that might have been made had there been no railroads: he holds both origins and destinations fixed despite the fact that there would almost certainly have been some such adjustments in the absence of railroads; and he assumes that, in the absence of railroads, water rates would be constant rather than declining as might have been the case had canal builders exploited potential economies of scale.

References:

E. Cary Brown. 1956. “Fiscal Policy in the Thirties: A Reappraisal,” American Economic Review, 46 (December).

Alfred Conrad and John Meyer. 1958. “The Economics of Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South” Journal of Political Economy, 66 (April). This paper was first presented at the meeting of the Economic History Association in 1956.

Albert Fishlow. 1965. American Railroads and the Transformation of the American Economy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Robert Fogel. 1960. The Union Pacific Railroad: A Case Study of Premature Enterprise. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press.

Robert Fogel. 1962. “A Quantitative Approach to the Study of Railroads in American Economic Growth: A Report of Some Preliminary Findings,” Journal of Economic History, 22 (June).

Robert E. Gallman. 1960. “Commodity Output in the United States,” in Conference on Income and Wealth, Trends in the American Economy in the Nineteenth Century, 24, Studies in Income and Wealth. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Douglass North. 1961. The Economic Growth of the United States 1790 to 1860 Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Permission is granted to reproduce or distribute an individual review for educational purposes only. No commercial use or sale is permitted.
The copyright to the full work reviewed naturally remains with the author or other current copyright holder. Any copyright questions regarding the work itself therefore should be addressed to the copyright holder.


http://eh.net/?s=Railroads+and+American+Economic+Growth
6056

Cheers,
USS ALASKA
 
'Biography of the Memphis and Charleston Railroad' by Paul Harncourt

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This is the history and biography of a little known railroad that had a number of 'firsts' in early railroad history, the most notable being that it was the first railroad to connect the east coast and the Mississippi River valley in 1857, a time when the Native Americans were still walking the trails soon to be carrying iron rails.

Review

This book is an important contribution to our understanding of the development of the railroad network in the United States, particularly in the South. Its extensive use of quotations from annotated original source documents makes the book especially valuable. Particularly impressive to this writer is the information contained in the 7 Appendices about the physical assets of the company during the different periods of the M & C's corporate life. More than half of the book is devoted to the Civil War period (which, of course, is always interesting) but its most important contributions are to the periods before and after the War. Well done, indeed!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1598001728/?tag=civilwartalkc-20


When the Civil War broke out in 1861, this railroad became of strategic importance as the only east-west railroad running through the Confederacy. On the morning of April 11, 1862, Union troops led by General Robert Mitchell captured Huntsville, cutting off this railroad's use for the Confederacy. The railroad and its route through Corinth, Mississippi was a significant factor in the Battle of Shiloh in 1862.

While the railroad briefly survived the American Civil War, the effect of the war on the railroad was devastating and led to its merger into other railroads of the same fate and eventually to become part of the Southern Railway system.


en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memphis_and_Charleston_Railroad

As always, please see @DaveBrt 's web site for more info on the Memphis & Charleston - https://www.csa-railroads.com/
6111

Cheers,
USS ALASKA
 
'Biography of the Memphis and Charleston Railroad' by Paul Harncourt

View attachment 213866

This is the history and biography of a little known railroad that had a number of 'firsts' in early railroad history, the most notable being that it was the first railroad to connect the east coast and the Mississippi River valley in 1857, a time when the Native Americans were still walking the trails soon to be carrying iron rails.

Review

This book is an important contribution to our understanding of the development of the railroad network in the United States, particularly in the South. Its extensive use of quotations from annotated original source documents makes the book especially valuable. Particularly impressive to this writer is the information contained in the 7 Appendices about the physical assets of the company during the different periods of the M & C's corporate life. More than half of the book is devoted to the Civil War period (which, of course, is always interesting) but its most important contributions are to the periods before and after the War. Well done, indeed!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1598001728/?tag=civilwartalkc-20


When the Civil War broke out in 1861, this railroad became of strategic importance as the only east-west railroad running through the Confederacy. On the morning of April 11, 1862, Union troops led by General Robert Mitchell captured Huntsville, cutting off this railroad's use for the Confederacy. The railroad and its route through Corinth, Mississippi was a significant factor in the Battle of Shiloh in 1862.

While the railroad briefly survived the American Civil War, the effect of the war on the railroad was devastating and led to its merger into other railroads of the same fate and eventually to become part of the Southern Railway system.


en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memphis_and_Charleston_Railroad

As always, please see @DaveBrt 's web site for more info on the Memphis & Charleston - https://www.csa-railroads.com/
6111

Cheers,
USS ALASKA
This book is an interesting attempt to tell the story of a company without composing any text. All the text is public acts and documents. There is no story to tie the parts together.

I used the first edition, so there may have been some changes to the 2nd, but not the basic structure.
 
Unlike Mr. Jenkins' extensive bibliography over on the Naval Board, I don't have that kind of a list so just figured we could go one-by-one.

First up...

'The Railroads of the Confederacy' by Robert C. Black III

"Originally published by UNC Press in 1952, The Railroads of the Confederacy tells the story of the first use of railroads on a major scale in a major war. Robert Black presents a complex and fascinating tale, with the railroads of the American South playing the part of tragic hero in the Civil War: at first vigorous though immature; then overloaded, driven unmercifully, starved for iron; and eventually worn out--struggling on to inevitable destruction in the wake of Sherman's army, carrying the Confederacy down with them.

With maps of all the Confederate railroads and contemporary photographs and facsimiles of such documents as railroad tickets, timetables, and soldiers' passes, the book will captivate railroad enthusiasts as well as readers interested in the Civil War."

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0006ASYUC/?tag=civilwartalkc-20

And great maps.

Cheers,
USS ALASKA

Railroad Friends,

First of all, thanks for this post. I read this book many years ago.

As soon as I can figure out how to do it, I am going to start a thread with the subject being the vigorous sectional fight from 1845-1861 over the first footprint of the transcontinental railroad as the PRIMARY cause of the Civil War --or, as I, a Yankee born in Philadelphia and raised in Illinois, call it, "The War for Southern Independence" and even "The War of Southern Aggression" (for western territories).

I have just come from a thread on that subject at CivilWarTalks.com, a thread brought to a conclusion today by a Moderator. The thread is captioned "TRR: The True Cause of the Civil War." At present it contains 1,308 posts with 14,083 views.

Let me hasten to add that the title of this thread was not mine but that of a friend who knew I had written a book on the subject. It is a bit misleading, as that wording suggests that my topic somehow uncovered something that is totally new and has escaped everyone but me. Not true. My book is about wha I believe is the PRIMARY, but NOT EXCLUSIVE cause of the war. I would welcome your comments, if and when I get it up. I am a bit of a technophobe, so it might take a bit. But stay tuned.

James Lutzweiler
 
To go with posts...
https://civilwartalk.com/threads/civil-war-railroad-books.139935/#post-1682058
https://civilwartalk.com/threads/civil-war-railroad-books.139935/page-2#post-1684052


In his own words...
'Moving the Union Army (Abridged, Annotated)' by General Herman Haupt

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Though his name is not recognized by more than a handful of Americans, he revolutionized the way large armies and equipment were moved in wartime. He offered to work without rank or pay but eventually accepted a commission...with conditions as told in this book. The fascinating story of how the largest army in history to that date was almost miraculously moved from place to place during the American Civil War is revealed in this volume by General Herman Haupt. He was also key to understanding how the Confederate armies moved and warned General Meade of the impending approach to Gettysburg by Robert E. Lee. Of special interest is Haupt's assessments of the generals and men he worked with during the war, including Lincoln, Grant, Meade, Hooker, Burnside, and more. A successful businessman before and after the war, General Haupt was still working at age 85, when this book was first published. Every memoir of the American Civil War provides us with another view of the catastrophe that changed the country forever.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/151904299X/?tag=civilwartalkc-20
6211

Cheers,
USS ALASKA
 
A book to go with these prior threads...

https://civilwartalk.com/threads/lincoln-funeral-car-goes-west.146377/#post-1823235

https://civilwartalk.com/threads/lincolns-funeral-train-reproduction.140242/#post-1687825

https://civilwartalk.com/threads/lincoln-funeral-train.78044/#post-553358


'New York and the Lincoln Specials: The President's Pre-inaugural and Funeral Trains Cross the Empire State' by Joseph D. Collea Jr

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Abraham Lincoln's presidency was bookended by a pair of dramatic railroad trips through the state of New York. His first term began with a pre-inaugural railway tour--his second ended with a funeral train. Each was a five-day crossing of the Empire State. These two journeys allowed thousands of ordinary Americans first to celebrate, and later to mourn, the great president, and became indelibly etched in the memories of those who had the opportunity to stand along parade route. Drawing on newspaper accounts, memoirs and diaries, this book brings to life the two epic and unique moments in both New York's and the nation's history.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1476670757/?tag=civilwartalkc-20
6278

Cheers,
USS ALASKA
 
A book to go with these prior threads and post #169...

https://civilwartalk.com/threads/lincoln-funeral-car-goes-west.146377/#post-1823235

https://civilwartalk.com/threads/lincolns-funeral-train-reproduction.140242/#post-1687825

https://civilwartalk.com/threads/lincoln-funeral-train.78044/#post-553358

'Lincoln's Funeral Train: The Epic Journey from Washington to Springfield' by Robert M. Reed

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The Lincoln funeral and the nearly 1,700-mile epic journey of the funeral train was the biggest single event to happen in the lives of American citizens at the time. At least seven million people—without the aid of radio, television, or internet—actually witnessed some part of the historic occasion. Eyewitness accounts from nearly 150 years ago and historic images present this remarkable journey of President Abraham Lincoln's remains, from the nation's Capitol to his final resting place in Springfield, Illinois. More than 440 cities, towns, villages and byways were on the route in 1865, and each is included in this fascinating volume. The veteran author draws from reports, documents, and contemporary narratives to finally fully present the event. Long-forgotten photographs and dozens of Lincoln-handled documents are included, adding further authentic flavor to this enthrallingly detailed, true-story of the historic Lincoln Funeral Train.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/076434594X/?tag=civilwartalkc-20
6398

Cheers,
USS ALASKA
 
Some books that are background material for the following threads...

https://civilwartalk.com/threads/th...use-of-the-civil-war-for-independence.152648/

https://civilwartalk.com/threads/trr-true-cause-of-the-war.151869/

'Abraham Lincoln as Attorney for the Illinois Central Railroad Company' by Illinois Central Railroad Company

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https://www.amazon.com/dp/1296759628/?tag=civilwartalkc-20

'Lincoln and the Railroads: A Biographical Study' by John William Starr Jr.

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https://www.amazon.com/dp/0265569060/?tag=civilwartalkc-20

'The Law of Illinois: Lincoln’s Case No. 123 Before the Illinois Supreme Court – Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company vs. Wilson, 17 Illinois 123 ... Cases Before the Illinois Supreme Court' by John Long

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The official reports of the Illinois Supreme Court contain 168 decisions of the Court in appeals (or, in a few instances, on applications for writs of mandamus, which invoked the Court’s original, rather than appellate, jurisdiction) in which Abraham Lincoln or his law firm, Lincoln & Herndon, was involved as counsel on appeal. Eighty-five of those cases occurred after Lincoln returned from Congress in 1849. Of those cases, in the second half of Lincoln’s career as a lawyer, 13 involved railroad companies. Lincoln or Lincoln & Herndon represented the railroad companies in nine, and opposed the railroad companies in four, of those cases. This eBook concerns the first case in which Lincoln opposed a railroad company before the Illinois Supreme Court: namely, Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company vs. Wilson, 17 Illinois 123 (1855). Lincoln’s assessment of his performance, in a letter to his client, Charles Hoyt, was, “I do not think I could ever have argued the case better than I did.” Yet Lincoln lost the appeal, which prompted him to express regret to Hoyt: “Very sorry for the result, but I do not think it could have been prevented.” This eBook contains (1) the author’s discussion of the Illinois Supreme Court’s opinion in the case, (2) a scanned image of the title page of the original edition of Volume 17 of the Illinois Supreme Court Reports, in which volume the opinion was published in 1857, and (3) the text of, and original headnotes to, the Illinois Supreme Court’s opinion, with the original paging marked to allow precise citation by scholars.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004SBP03Y/?tag=civilwartalkc-20

'Lincoln's Greatest Case: The River, the Bridge, and the Making of America' by Brian McGinty

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The untold story of how one sensational trial propelled a self-taught lawyer and a future president into the national spotlight.

In the early hours of May 6, 1856, the steamboat Effie Afton barreled into a pillar of the Rock Island Bridge―the first railroad bridge ever to span the Mississippi River. Soon after, the newly constructed vessel, crowded with passengers and livestock, erupted into flames and sank in the river below, taking much of the bridge with it.

As lawyer and Lincoln scholar Brian McGinty dramatically reveals in Lincoln's Greatest Case, no one was killed, but the question of who was at fault cried out for an answer. Backed by powerful steamboat interests in St. Louis, the owners of the Effie Afton quickly pressed suit, hoping that a victory would not only prevent the construction of any future bridges from crossing the Mississippi but also thwart the burgeoning spread of railroads from Chicago. The fate of the long-dreamed-of transcontinental railroad lurked ominously in the background, for if rails could not cross the Mississippi by bridge, how could they span the continent all the way to the Pacific?

The official title of the case was Hurd et al. v. The Railroad Bridge Company, but it could have been St. Louis v. Chicago, for the transportation future of the whole nation was at stake. Indeed, was it to be dominated by steamboats or by railroads? Conducted at almost the same time as the notorious Dred Scott case, this new trial riveted the nation’s attention. Meanwhile, Abraham Lincoln, already well known as one of the best trial lawyers in Illinois, was summoned to Chicago to join a handful of crack legal practitioners in the defense of the bridge. While there, he succesfully helped unite the disparate regions of the country with a truly transcontinental rail system and, in the process, added to the stellar reputation that vaulted him into the White House less than four years later.

Re-creating the Effie Afton case from its unlikely inception to its controversial finale, McGinty brilliantly animates this legal cauldron of the late 1850s, which turned out to be the most consequential trial in Lincoln's nearly quarter century as a lawyer. Along the way, the tall prairie lawyer's consummate legal skills and instincts are also brought to vivid life, as is the history of steamboat traffic on the Mississippi, the progress of railroads west of the Appalachians, and the epochal clashes of railroads and steamboats at the river’s edge.

Lincoln's Greatest Case is legal history on a grand scale and an essential first act to a pivotal Lincoln drama we did not know was there.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0871407841/?tag=civilwartalkc-20
6433

Cheers,
USS ALASKA
 
Some books that are background material for the following threads...

https://civilwartalk.com/threads/th...use-of-the-civil-war-for-independence.152648/

https://civilwartalk.com/threads/trr-true-cause-of-the-war.151869/

'Abraham Lincoln as Attorney for the Illinois Central Railroad Company' by Illinois Central Railroad Company

View attachment 215945
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1296759628/?tag=civilwartalkc-20

'Lincoln and the Railroads: A Biographical Study' by John William Starr Jr.

View attachment 215947
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0265569060/?tag=civilwartalkc-20

'The Law of Illinois: Lincoln’s Case No. 123 Before the Illinois Supreme Court – Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company vs. Wilson, 17 Illinois 123 ... Cases Before the Illinois Supreme Court' by John Long

View attachment 215949
The official reports of the Illinois Supreme Court contain 168 decisions of the Court in appeals (or, in a few instances, on applications for writs of mandamus, which invoked the Court’s original, rather than appellate, jurisdiction) in which Abraham Lincoln or his law firm, Lincoln & Herndon, was involved as counsel on appeal. Eighty-five of those cases occurred after Lincoln returned from Congress in 1849. Of those cases, in the second half of Lincoln’s career as a lawyer, 13 involved railroad companies. Lincoln or Lincoln & Herndon represented the railroad companies in nine, and opposed the railroad companies in four, of those cases. This eBook concerns the first case in which Lincoln opposed a railroad company before the Illinois Supreme Court: namely, Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company vs. Wilson, 17 Illinois 123 (1855). Lincoln’s assessment of his performance, in a letter to his client, Charles Hoyt, was, “I do not think I could ever have argued the case better than I did.” Yet Lincoln lost the appeal, which prompted him to express regret to Hoyt: “Very sorry for the result, but I do not think it could have been prevented.” This eBook contains (1) the author’s discussion of the Illinois Supreme Court’s opinion in the case, (2) a scanned image of the title page of the original edition of Volume 17 of the Illinois Supreme Court Reports, in which volume the opinion was published in 1857, and (3) the text of, and original headnotes to, the Illinois Supreme Court’s opinion, with the original paging marked to allow precise citation by scholars.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004SBP03Y/?tag=civilwartalkc-20

'Lincoln's Greatest Case: The River, the Bridge, and the Making of America' by Brian McGinty

View attachment 215950
The untold story of how one sensational trial propelled a self-taught lawyer and a future president into the national spotlight.

In the early hours of May 6, 1856, the steamboat Effie Afton barreled into a pillar of the Rock Island Bridge―the first railroad bridge ever to span the Mississippi River. Soon after, the newly constructed vessel, crowded with passengers and livestock, erupted into flames and sank in the river below, taking much of the bridge with it.

As lawyer and Lincoln scholar Brian McGinty dramatically reveals in Lincoln's Greatest Case, no one was killed, but the question of who was at fault cried out for an answer. Backed by powerful steamboat interests in St. Louis, the owners of the Effie Afton quickly pressed suit, hoping that a victory would not only prevent the construction of any future bridges from crossing the Mississippi but also thwart the burgeoning spread of railroads from Chicago. The fate of the long-dreamed-of transcontinental railroad lurked ominously in the background, for if rails could not cross the Mississippi by bridge, how could they span the continent all the way to the Pacific?

The official title of the case was Hurd et al. v. The Railroad Bridge Company, but it could have been St. Louis v. Chicago, for the transportation future of the whole nation was at stake. Indeed, was it to be dominated by steamboats or by railroads? Conducted at almost the same time as the notorious Dred Scott case, this new trial riveted the nation’s attention. Meanwhile, Abraham Lincoln, already well known as one of the best trial lawyers in Illinois, was summoned to Chicago to join a handful of crack legal practitioners in the defense of the bridge. While there, he succesfully helped unite the disparate regions of the country with a truly transcontinental rail system and, in the process, added to the stellar reputation that vaulted him into the White House less than four years later.

Re-creating the Effie Afton case from its unlikely inception to its controversial finale, McGinty brilliantly animates this legal cauldron of the late 1850s, which turned out to be the most consequential trial in Lincoln's nearly quarter century as a lawyer. Along the way, the tall prairie lawyer's consummate legal skills and instincts are also brought to vivid life, as is the history of steamboat traffic on the Mississippi, the progress of railroads west of the Appalachians, and the epochal clashes of railroads and steamboats at the river’s edge.

Lincoln's Greatest Case is legal history on a grand scale and an essential first act to a pivotal Lincoln drama we did not know was there.

https://www.amazon.com/Lincolns-Greatest-Case-Bridge-America/dp/0871407841/ref=sr_1_2_twi_har_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1546199115&sr=1-2&keywords=lincoln+and+the+railroadsd
6433

Cheers,
USS ALASKA

Absolutely wonderful additions!! Much obliged!
 
A book to go with thread https://civilwartalk.com/threads/the-classic-caboose-an-american-legend.141646/#post-1719518

'The Railroad Caboose: Its 100 Year History, Legend, and Lore' by William F. Knapke

1546697870445.png


From dust jacket notes: "The Railroad Caboose is the most distinctive, most comprehensive volume ever built around a piece of railroad rolling stock. Here's the biggest freight-trainload of railroadiana, legend and lore, ever hauled between hard covers. A century of tradition is served up in easy-to-read style with a matchless picture gallery. Technically, there can be no freight train without a caboose, complete with marker lights. And no library of railroad or American history can be called complete without The Railroad Caboose, compiled by the nation's oldest and foremost living railroad historians." With more than 165 Illustrations

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0870950118/?tag=civilwartalkc-20
6522

Cheers,
USS ALASKA
 
A book to go with these...

https://civilwartalk.com/threads/civil-war-railroad-books.139935/page-8#post-1886686

https://civilwartalk.com/threads/civil-war-railroad-books.139935/page-6#post-1821920

https://civilwartalk.com/threads/civil-war-railroad-books.139935/page-6#post-1794883

'The Railroad Tycoon Who Built Chicago: A Biography of William B. Ogden' by Jack Harpster

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William Butler Ogden was a pioneer railroad magnate, one of the earliest founders and developers of the city of Chicago, and an important influence on U.S. westward expansion. His career as a businessman stretched from the streets of Chicago to the wilds of the Wisconsin lumber forests, from the iron mines of Pennsylvania to the financial capitals in New York and beyond. Jack Harpster’s The Railroad Tycoon Who Built Chicago: A Biography of William B. Ogden is the first chronicle of one of the most notable figures in nineteenth-century America.

Harpster traces the life of Ogden from his early experiences as a boy and young businessman in upstate New York to his migration to Chicago, where he invested in land, canal construction, and steamboat companies. He became Chicago’s first mayor, built the city’s first railway system, and suffered through the Great Chicago Fire. His diverse business interests included real estate, land development, city planning, urban transportation, manufacturing, beer brewing, mining, and banking, to name a few. Harpster, however, does not simply focus on Ogden’s role as business mogul; he delves into the heart and soul of the man himself.

The Railroad Tycoon Who Built Chicago is a meticulously researched and nuanced biography set against the backdrop of the historical and societal themes of the nineteenth century. It is a sweeping story about one man’s impact on the birth of commerce in America. Ogden’s private life proves to be as varied and interesting as his public persona, and Harpster weaves the two into a colorful tapestry of a life well and usefully lived.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0809329174/?tag=civilwartalkc-20
6558

Cheers,
USS ALASKA
 
Coming to an Amazon near you, from CWT poster @Scott Mingus...

'Targeted Tracks: The Cumberland Valley Railroad in the Civil War, 1861-1865' by Scott L. Mingus and Cooper H. Winger

1547386730670.png


The Civil War was the first conflict in which railroads played a major role. Although much has been written about their role in general, little has been written about specific lines. The Cumberland Valley Railroad, for example, played an important strategic role by connecting Hagerstown, Maryland to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Its location enhanced its importance during some of the Civil War’s most critical campaigns. Despite the line’s significance to the Union war effort, its remarkable story remains little known. The publication of Targeted Tracks: The Cumberland Valley Railroad in the Civil War, 1861-1865, by Scott L. Mingus Sr. and Cooper H. Wingert, rectifies that oversight.

Because of its proximity to major cities in the Eastern Theater, the Cumberland Valley Railroad was an enticing target for Confederate leaders. As invading armies jostled for position, the CVRR’s valuable rolling stock was never far from their minds. Northern military and railway officials, who knew the line was a prized target, coordinated—and just as often butted heads—in a series of efforts to ensure the railroad’s prized resources remained out of enemy hands. When they failed to protect the line, as they sometimes did, Southern horsemen wrought havoc on the Northern war effort by tearing up its tracks, seizing or torching Union supplies, and laying waste to warehouses, engine houses, and passenger depots.

In October 1859, Abolitionist John Brown used the CVRR in his fateful Harpers Ferry raid. The line was under direct threat by invading Confederates during the Antietam Campaign, and the following summer suffered serious damage during the Gettysburg Campaign. In 1864, Rebel raiders burned much of its headquarters town, Chambersburg, including the homes of many CVRR employees. The railroad was as vital to residents of the bustling and fertile Cumberland Valley as it was to the Union war effort.

Targeted Tracks is grounded on the railway’s voluminous reports, the letters and diaries of local residents and Union and Confederate soldiers, official reports, and newspaper accounts. The primary sources, combined with the expertise of the authors, bring this largely untold story to life.

About the Authors
Scott L. Mingus Sr. is a scientist and executive in the global paper industry. A resident of York, Pennsylvania, he is the author of a dozen Civil War books, including the bestselling Flames Beyond Gettysburg: The Confederate Expedition to the Susquehanna River, June 1863 (Savas Beatie, 2011), and Confederate General William “Extra Billy” Smith: From Virginia’s Statehouse to Gettysburg Scapegoat (Savas Beatie, 2013), which won the Nathan Bedford Forrest Southern History Award and the Dr. James I Robertson, Jr. Literary Prize. Scott has written several articles for Gettysburg Magazine, maintains a blog on the Civil War history of York County (www.yorkblog.com/cannonball), and received the 2013 Heritage Profile Award from the York County Heritage Trust for his contributions to local Civil War history.


Cooper Wingert Is The Author Of A Dozen Books And Numerous Articles On Slavery And The American Civil War. His Book The Confederate Approach On Harrisburg Won The 2012 Dr. James I. Robertson, Jr. Literary Award For Confederate History. His Other Works Include Slavery And The Underground Railroad In South Central Pennsylvania, Abolitionists Of South Central Pennsylvania, And Harrisburg And The Civil War. Cooper Has Also Written Articles For Gettysburg Magazine And Has Appeared On C-Span Book Tv And Pennsylvania Cable Network. Wingert Received The Camp Curtin Historical Society’s Inaugural General Joseph F. Knipe Award In Recognition For His Research On The Harrisburg Area During The Civil War. A Pennsylvania Native, Wingert Is Currently A Student At Dickinson College In Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1611214610/?tag=civilwartalkc-20
6700

Cheers,
USS ALASKA
 
'The Railroad Builders: A Chronicle of the Welding of the States' by John Moody 1919

1547925957470.png


Reviews;
Alex
5.0 out of 5 stars
Read it in One Sitting
June 24, 2013
This is a fascinating study of the emergence and abrupt nationalization of the railroad industry in the United States. While there are no doubt incidences in which the owners of these trains exploited their customers, these conditions most often arose as a result of government interference. The author does a very good job of concealing his political beliefs, which made the entire book infinitely more enjoyable to me. He does not take great pains to portray the railroad tycoons as robber barons, nor does he try to paint the trust busters as absolutely evil. However, merely by giving us the facts, and simply mentioning how wage mandates and price fixing affected the railroads, it becomes clear that the root of the problem is not the free market. The author does not mention it, but the infamous Central Pacific, which inspired Frank Norris's novel The Octopus, was a monopoly sanctioned by the California legislature. Norris's indignation was targeted at the wrong faceless entity. I wish the author had added a few pages about the personal lives of the famous men in the book, but that is my own personal whim. I'm sure many other readers are happy to know only a bit about Vanderbilt, Gould, Garret and the rest.


Rick Cook
4.0 out of 5 stars
How American railroads grew
December 5, 2012
In about 50 years the American railroad system grew from a few teakettle lines running from nowhere to nowhere into a mighty continent spanning entity. This is the story of that growth, told through the progress -- or lack thereof -- of the various railroad companies. And it wasn't all progress. The story is rife with failures and weak sisters who were eventually squeezed out as independent companies. One of the most interesting things about this book is how little government involvement there was in 19th century railroads. Until the end of the century when the dangers of unregulated monopolies became blatant there was very little government control, financing or support. And there was never any central planning. Each railroad grew or failed on its own, yet the country ended up with a system which was the envy of the world and superior even to the British system. The book ignores the later social issues growing out of the railroads, the mechanics of managing the system or the locomotives or other technology. It also doesn't discuss the financing in detail. But for what it does cover it does a pretty good job in an early 20th century fashion.


https://www.amazon.com/Railroad-Bui...e=all_reviews&pageNumber=1#reviews-filter-bar

Full online versions can be found here...

https://books.google.com/books?id=-QYOAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=The+Railroad+Builders:+A+Chronicle+of+the+Welding+of+the+States&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi28OmAyfrfAhUGrVkKHYv1DkwQ6AEIKjAA#v=onepage&q=The Railroad Builders: A Chronicle of the Welding of the States&f=false

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3036/3036-h/3036-h.htm

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015063601085;view=1up;seq=1
6823

Cheers,
USS ALASKA
 
'The Life and Legend of Jay Gould' by Professor Maury Klein

1548253943979.png


"A wonderful read." -- USA Today
"Klein... has delved deep into archives that most previous writers on Gould have ignored, and is able to back up his revisionist assertions with a multitude of telling details." -- New York Times
He was, for Joseph Pulitzer, "one of the most sinister figures that have ever flitted bat-like across the vision of the American people." According to the New York Times, "the work of reform is but half done... when people claiming to be respectable are not ashamed of being associated with a man such as he." He was Jay Gould, the individual who for a century has been singled out as the most despicable and unscrupulous of the Robber Barons. In this splendid biography, Maury Klein paints the most complete portrait of the notorious Gould that we have ever had. His Gould is a brilliant but ruthless businessman who merged dying railroads into expansive and profit-making lines, including the giant Union Pacific.
"Clearly organized, meticulously researched, and skillfully written." -- Washington Post
"Lucid and engrossing." -- Businessweek
"Klein's biography is a balanced, objective, and fascinating account." -- Philadelphia Inquirer


https://www.amazon.com/dp/0801828805/?tag=civilwartalkc-20
6869

Cheers,
USS ALASKA
 
'The Life and Legend of Jay Gould' by Professor Maury Klein

View attachment 259165

"A wonderful read." -- USA Today
"Klein... has delved deep into archives that most previous writers on Gould have ignored, and is able to back up his revisionist assertions with a multitude of telling details." -- New York Times
He was, for Joseph Pulitzer, "one of the most sinister figures that have ever flitted bat-like across the vision of the American people." According to the New York Times, "the work of reform is but half done... when people claiming to be respectable are not ashamed of being associated with a man such as he." He was Jay Gould, the individual who for a century has been singled out as the most despicable and unscrupulous of the Robber Barons. In this splendid biography, Maury Klein paints the most complete portrait of the notorious Gould that we have ever had. His Gould is a brilliant but ruthless businessman who merged dying railroads into expansive and profit-making lines, including the giant Union Pacific.
"Clearly organized, meticulously researched, and skillfully written." -- Washington Post
"Lucid and engrossing." -- Businessweek
"Klein's biography is a balanced, objective, and fascinating account." -- Philadelphia Inquirer


https://www.amazon.com/dp/0801828805/?tag=civilwartalkc-20
6869

Cheers,
USS ALASKA
I have come to the opinion that Pres. Grant knew that only Jay Gould could keep the Union Pacific in operation, especially once the Kansas-Pacific was competing for the Colorado traffic. That made him very tolerant of Gould's play in the gold market, at first.
Quite a collection of reviews. :angel:
 
Staying with the railroad subjects: it is likely that Grant and Sherman knew the Union Pacific was being looted of all its cash, as early as 1868. Durant was building the railroad on the basis that it would never generate adequate revenue. The California end of the project had a much better chance of staying solvent. By April 1869, Charles Francis Adams, II had already exposed the financial problems involved. The probability already existed that there would be an insolvency proceeding in New York to reorganize the railroad. That would involve Gould and that created some tolerance of Gould's play in the Gold Market which started in late spring of 1869 not long after Adams' expose`.
So the first two scandals attributed to Grant were probably due to the assassination of President Lincoln, which removed the one official that could have supervised Durant and Oakes Ames and the Union Pacific in general. Had President Lincoln lived, the scandal could have been contained within reasonable bounds.
 
By April 1869, Charles Francis Adams, II had already exposed the financial problems involved.

'Railroads: Their Origins and Problems' by Charles Francis Adams Jr.

1548689969754.png


Who better to discuss the origins and problems of late 19th century railroads than witty, erudite, Charles Francis Adams, Jr.? As a railroad executive, he knew the business intimately. As an Adams, he understood the politics and men of his time and could write about them in the most entertaining and enlightening manner possible. Charles Adams had been a colonel in the Union Army during the Civil War. At that time, his father was Lincoln's Minister to England and his young brother was the future author of what is still regarded as one of the great nonfiction books of the 20th century, "The Education of Henry Adams." Those three men also had two U.S. Presidents in their lineage. Altogether a fascinating and entertaining book. "...in this day of hasty generalization, it will not do to forget that these are the conclusions of the man who has given more study than any other to the railroad problem, and is the best qualified man in this country to discuss it authoritatively. None can read it without profit and nobody who desires to think intelligently about railroads should neglect to do so.—THE NEW YORK TIMES

https://www.amazon.com/Railroads-Origins-Problems-Abridged-Annotated/dp/1519055528/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1548689702&sr=8-1&keywords=Railroads,+Their+Origin+and+Problems

The above NYT's review is somewhat inflated. While Adams' pedigree, education, and intelligence are pretty unassailable, his writings of railroads are from more of an academic and theoretical basis than practical application. The expectations of how things should be in the sterile laboratory environment often doesn't align with the crucible of real life experience. Well worth reading though with that thought in mind...and what would come later with the ICC.
6961

Cheers,
USS ALASKA
 
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