US Railroad Manpower: Two Other Corps in the West

wausaubob

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General McCallum described the manpower applied to the operation and construction of the military railroads in the department of the Mississippi in these terms:
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https://books.google.com/books?id=44aTwd5T-qwC&printsec=frontcover&dq=McCallum+United+States+Military+Railroads&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjp1P7Dg53vAhWHW80KHbc0CoQQ6AEwAHoECAAQAg#v=onepage&q=McCallum United States Military Railroads&f=false p.16
That's five thousand men rebuilding the railroads and adding new connections, relieving Dodge's men of that chore, and twelve thousand men to operate the railroads including routine maintenance.

At page 19 McCallum stated the following:
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Although some railroads used by the US Army in the south were cheaply maintained, the main line from Nashville to Chattanooga was improved to be much more than a single track railroad.
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p.21
The Confederacy had no chance to meet this manpower advantage of the US, or even to seriously deflect it.
And this was just one part of the reworking of the logistical system from Louisville and Cincinnati all the way to Atlanta.
 
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The US logistical system was not just sufficient, it was in many cases extravagant. The US built a steamboat yard at Bridgeport, just to run steamboats from Muscle Shoals up to Knoxville. Late in the war McCallum built a rolling mill in Chattanooga, with new buildings and its own siding.
Railroads in Missouri, hardly central to the US war effort, were restored to working order. McCallum's division managers had the crews and the tools and they found places to use them.
 
The railroad men in the south were inefficient, and complaint was made to Thomas in late 1863 about the uncooperative men in charge of running the railroads. Many of the eastern railroad men were brought west to Chattanooga and Nashville to help work the line, being hard pressed at that time in supplying the army in Knoxville and Bridgeport. Grant had to order McCallum west to oversee this operation, and he did not come alone.
[I have a double disk of the army operations of the O. R. and just recently changed back to Disk 1. The notation and reference I mention is on Disk 2, and if necessary I can relocate the volume I paraphrased.]
Lubliner.
 
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