Part 1

     The American Civil War was the first war in history to use the railroad to the extent it did.

     There have been others that used the railroad in the time of war. The first was the Crimean War (1853-1856), which was considered to be the first modern war due to it being the first to be reported in the newspapers, photographed, and recorded by the telegraph.

     The allied forces, consisting of Britain and France, during the siege of Sevastopol, built a 14-mile railway and named it the Grand Crimean Central Railway. It was used to transport supplies and ammunition.

    In 1859, before the Franco-Austrian War, the French and Piedmontese from Northern Italy had expanded their railroad due to the possibility of the Austrian invasion.

     When the Austrians invaded, the French and Piedmontese used the railroad to amass a large army to crush the Austrians.

     Even though the railroad was used, they were not used to the extent they were during the American Civil War.

    The railroad played a crucial role in various aspects of the war besides troop movement. ⁶             

    Intelligence and communication were vital to the commanders. The telegraph, tied with the railroad, allowed for rapid communication, almost as if it was happening in real-time. This was extremely important during battles to keep the commanders updated so as to use the information to shift troops to counter the enemy’s attacks. ⁶

     As part of the intelligence side, they would send a train to gather where the enemy troops and artillery were located. They did not do this often due to the extreme danger the locomotive would have been put in. They had to treat the locomotives like gold because replacing them was hard. They were also used for counterintelligence by sending trains in the opposite way to fool the enemy about where they were going.  

  Of course, as discussed before, one of the railroad’s major uses was logistics and supply chain management. The replenishment of food, ammunition, and equipment were all extremely important to the war effort.

     They were also used in strategic decision-making. When planning battles and campaigns, the railroad was a main consideration because it allowed for rapid troop movement and supply replenishment to support the troops. If this was cut off, failure was close behind.

     It was impossible to live off the land. With an army of 120,000 and 65,000 animals, it was impossible to gather enough food for everyone east of the Mississippi River.

     Before the railroad war, battles had to be waged close to urban areas so that supplies could be found.

     With the railroad being built, battles were fought outside the city in underdeveloped areas such as fields and the forest, but within 20 miles of a railroad.

     The battles were fought primarily in the Southern States of Mississippi, Tennessee, and Georgia.

     Railroad junctions were highly coveted. Battles for their control were campaign objectives. Union strategists would plan and target these objectives. Union Junctions include Corinth, Mississippi, Chattanooga, and Atlanta. They were extremely important to keep the supply chains open.

     General Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign and his March to the Sea or General Grant’s siege of Petersburg and Richmond would not have been successful if the supply line had been disrupted.      

    Railroads offered “the sole means often transporting supplies.” Sherman added, “and only then because we had the men and the means to maintain and defend them in addition to what were necessary to overcome the enemy.”

 

General William Tecumseh Sherman

Wiki commons, Public Domain

 

      Sherman observed that sustaining his 100,000-man army and 35,000 animals for the 196-day campaign over a 473-mile supply line would have required 36,000 six-mule teams, each hauling 2 tons of freight 20 miles daily.

     Sherman was well aware of the railroad’s importance, and after he captured Atlanta, he began his March to the Sea. His railroads pulled up all the rails back to Chattanooga to deny them to the Confederates. He also took them with him in case any of the tracks he traveled on needed repairs. ⁷

     Both the Union and the Confederate governments faced similar challenges in establishing wartime political, military and industrial policies.                 They had to arrange adequate rate agreements for both the military passengers and freight, integrate the tracks and operations of separately owned and competing railroads, find ways to compensate for the war’s drain on the skirted workforce, and prioritize and allocate scarce resources.                                      

      The Civil War made demands upon the railroad that had not been put upon them before the war.

     The North and South had a problem with rail gaps or different gauges/widths. When a train would come into town with a load to go further with another train, the track gauge would be different. One company would like a narrow gauge of three feet, and the other would have a larger five feet. The yard workers would have to unload it by hand and load it onto the other train car. This took valuable time. At times, the other train’s depot would be across town. Then, passengers would have to secure transportation or carry their suitcases across town. Below is a cartoon depicting the horrors of goods transfer at the break of gauge at Gloucester in 1843.