'Map of the United States & Canada : exhibiting the railroads with their distances, single and double tracks & width of gauge, and the time compared with noon at Washington and Greenwich'
When the war began both sides knew railroads would play an important role. There had been other wars where railroads played a part. In the Crimean War (1853 – 56) railroads had limited use for delivering supplies. Prior to the Franco – Austrian War (1859), the French and Piedmontese from Northern Italy had expanded their rail systems expecting an Austrian invasion. When the Austrian invasion came the allies rapidly amassed a large army to crush the Austrian invaders. These wars would not compare to the American Civil War and the extent of the use of railroads during the war. It would be fifty years until the First World War that the use of railroads in warfare would be of the same magnitude as the Civil War.
Jackson does his thing...
The first railroad targeted by the Confederates was the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. This railroad ran from Baltimore to Washington then west through slave holding Maryland through the arsenal town of Harpers Ferry crossing through parts of Virginia (now West Virginia) to Ohio. Four days after the attack on Fort Sumter, John Daniel Imboden then a Confederate captain received permission to take Harper's Ferry and its arsenal. There was a diplomatic problem since Maryland had not yet decided whether it would secede from the Union. Imboden took Harper's Ferry and then Colonel Thomas J. Jackson was placed in charge of the occupation. Harpers Ferry is located in a deep gorge making it impossible to defend. Jackson knew he would have to abandon the town and after Maryland voted not to secede he was given orders to destroy the railroad and the railroad equipment. Jackson's taking of fifty-six locomotives and three hundred railroad cars was the largest capture of railroad equipment during the war. Jackson knew the value of the locomotives and the Confederacy's inability to produce a sufficient number of them. Despite orders to destroy the equipment, Jackson had thirteen locomotives taken forty-eight miles overland by forty horse teams to Strasburg, Virginia the nearest Confederate rail terminal.
Haupt...
When called up, Haupt would not accept a commission and his title of general was honorary. He would accept no compensation for his services and rarely wore a uniform. Haupt reasoned that this would allow him to be able to get back to Massachusetts to pursue his litigation over the Hoosac Tunnel.
The decline...
The Decline of the Confederate Railroads
General Longstreet's Chief of Staff Gilbert Moxley Sorrell made the trip to Chickamauga. He would write, "Never before were so many troops moved over such worn-out railways." The railroads used by the Confederates on their way to Chickamauga were in the southern heartland and these worn-out railways had not yet seen Union destruction. They were falling apart because the Confederacy could not maintain them. [4]
Had the Civil War ended after the September 1863 Battle of Chickamauga, the Confederacy would have been praised for its use of railroads. First Manassas, Bragg's movement of thirty thousand troops in 1862 and the Battle of Chickamauga represented decisive use of railroads by the Confederacy. The war did not end in 1863 and the Confederate failure to maintain its railway system was a major contributor to its defeat.
There is much more but you have to read it on your own...
Snippets...
During the spring of 1856 The Troy & Greenfield was able to sign on Hermann Haupt, a well known and respected railroad engineer from the Pennsylvania RR for $3.9 million. Haupt was responsible not only for the tunnel, but the entire right of way for the Troy & Greenfield.
Hermann Haupt (Civil war era) [Click to enlarge]
At this point problems with the tunneling techniques began to become apparent. A watery crumbly "porridge stone" or as tunnel opponents enjoyed calling it "demoralized rock" was discovered to be in abundance on the west end. Every time a shovel full was removed it was filled by the another shovel full of the crumbling stone. Workers described this as a "shovelful of eels". This problem would ultimately require 6 to 8 layers of brick in tube form to support the tunnel. On the east side layers of gneiss and quartz proved difficult to blast through. For the deeper harder stone on the west end, Haupt purchased yet another $25,000 ill fated machine. After a test run the machine was abandoned.
By May 1857 the west heading was only a mere 80 feet deep. To speed up work a small shaft was dropped about 300 feet east of the original portal (known today as the Haupt Tunnel portal). This shaft, completed September 23, 1858 formed two headings to chip away at. This shaft was located right about where the West Portal is presently located. The demoralized rock here was so bad that it was decided to drop a 318 foot deep shaft 2500 feet from the west end to create 2 additional headings. Progress continued despite several political ups and downs and by 1860 the west heading had proceeded 500 feet with a great deal of help from stone arching that was slowly replacing wooden timbers and the small shaft. The east was having better luck, without the demoralized rock the tunneling had progressed 1810 feet.
Death,,,
The Central Shaft was a death trap. Many people met their unfortunate demise there. This was also the site of the worst tragedy in the tunnels construction. On October 17, 1867 a gasometer which was an abandoned form of lighting held in the hoist house basement leaked naptha fumes which shortly thereafter contacted a candle and exploded sending newly sharpened tools as well as the hoist house down the 583 foot deep shaft. All 13 of the workers in the shaft died from either the debris of asphyxiation. Two hours after the explosion one miner was lowered down by rope. He was pulled up gasping and said "No hope". As the shaft filled with water some bodies surfaced. Others would not be recovered until October 18, 1868. All work had ceased at the Central Shaft for an entire year. The Tunnel certainly earned the nickname "the bloody pit" after this incident.
Bringing the