Supplying Burnside at Fredericksburg

[DaveBrt]

In Haupt's Reminiscences, he notes that it took about an hour to unload the 8 cars from each of his two railroad ferry barges and reload them with 8 more. It then took 6 hours to tow the two barges from Alexandria to Aquia Creek. To transport a single train's contents from Warrenton Junction across country to Falmouth would have taken 200 wagons four to six days and would have cost $3,000 more per day than the cost of the water route,

 

[JOHN42768]

Logistics, logistics , logistics!

 

[DaveBrt]

Logistics, logistics , logistics!

Both Lee and Burnside knew the AOP could not be supplied by the single Orange & Alexandria RR track from Washington. Both knew it had to be Fredericksburg or the James River. Of course, only Grant could force the Lincoln administration to accept the James River, so it was a race to see if Burnside could supply his force at Fredericksburg with enough to make his lunge to Richmond before Lee could get a big enough force to prevent the lunge.