Control of Rr During Civil

¶ … control of RR during Civil War

One of the most important issues with regard to armed conflict is resources. It would seem that to a large degree resources can make the difference between the winner and the loser in any regional or international conflict. In fact resources are so crucial that most use the availability of resources, rather than the righteousness of the cause as one of the fundamental decision factors of whether to enter into armed conflict at all. In the case of civil wars the issue frequently becomes more complicated, as the control of such resources, as they exists and can be manipulated, determines to some degree the outcome. This is specifically true with transportation resources, as if the time it takes to transport troops and equipment to important locations is unbalanced then the advantage is nearly always on the part of those who are able to most quickly do this. In 1997 Colonel Morelock, Field Artillery Director of the Combat Studies Institute wrote:

According to an old saying, "amateurs study tactics; professionals study logistics." any serious student of the military profession will know that logistics constantly shape military affairs and sometimes even dictate strategy and tactics. This excellent monograph by Dr. Christopher Gable shows that the appearance of the steam-powered railroad had enormous implications for military logistics, and thus for strategy, in the American Civil War. Not surprisingly, the side that proved superior in "railroad generalship," or the utilization of the railroads for military purposes, was also the side that won the war.

The case of the American Civil War, is no exception, and many argue that the ability of Lincoln to harness the power of the transportation infrastructure of the U.S. (and especially in the South) was essential to eventual victory on the part of the Union forces. Most essential to this statement is the frequently cited ability of the Union to harness the power of the existing Rail system to help in the war cause. Herman Haupt, otherwise known and Lincoln's railroad man was the determining voice for this particular victory, despite the fact that he has gone largely unrecognized as a war hero, by anyone except the most adept civil war historians.

Herman Haupt, hardly a household name even to informed people (except Civil War historians), is one of the genuine giants in the history of American engineering and railroading. Perhaps his chief claim to fame was his eighteen-month stint as chief of construction and transportation on the U.S. Military Railroads, 1862-1863. In this post he managed what became the largest railroad in the world at that time, consisting of the patchwork of captured southern railroads in conquered Confederate territory. Haupt transformed these lines into an efficient network of logistics and transportation that was an important factor in Union military success.

In one of the crucial histories of the life and works of Haupt, Lincoln is said to have said of one of Haupt's most successful works that his bridge over the Potomac was; the most remarkable structure that human eyes ever rested upon. That man Haupt has built a bridge across Potomac Creek, about 400 feet long and nearly 100 feet high, over which loaded trains are running every hour, and upon my word -- there is nothing in it but bean poles and corn stalks"

In fact the development of the whole system, as it grew and changed was largely as a result of the early work done by Haupt to create systems that were scientifically sound and repeatable, in construction.

In 1840 Haupt helped construct the York and Wrightsville Railroad in Pennsylvania. In so doing he discovered that no American railway engineer had previously assessed the strength of railway trusses in bridge construction. He therefore completed some technical experiments, and he was later recognized as having devised a means of "representing strains of geometrical solids; deflections by parabolic areas; and the variable pressures at various parts of beams by the corresponding ordinates of plane curves..."

Up to a point just prior to the civil war, it can be assumed that every soldier and/or piece of equipment that ever went to war did so either of its own volition or by relying upon beasts of burden. For the most part soldiers walked everywhere they needed, with the exclusion of those elites who rode horseback or runners who went forward to visualize the playing field and equipment was either dragged by soldiers, or wagons of some sort. Horses, even during the civil war were scarce resources that just like mules required constant care and feeding as well as periods of rest that were not congruent with the war effort.

Every weapon, every round of ammunition, every pound of food eaten by an army, every tent peg, and every bandage reached the battlefield by muscle power. The only exceptions were those resources transported by water and those extracted from the countryside.

What changed this was the invention of modern transportation, rail, water and eventually automobile technology. Given the enormity of bringing an army to war, these advances really changed everything about warfare and the U.S. Civil War is one of the greatest examples. Though it also must be said that a great many soldiers still walked from battle to battle, the availability of train transport and river transport in some cases shifted the advantage, greatly, especially with regard to equipment transport and emergency troop transport. Gabel points out that the larger the army and the farther the distance the more difficult issues of transport became, as the more animals you needed the greater amount of food, and the longer the distance again the more supplies you needed.

No wonder that armies of the preindustrial age were so often hungry, ragged, and exhausted, spending far more time scouring the countryside for food than they did fighting the enemy. Nowhere was this more true than in North America. The New World was just too big a battleground for armies moving by muscle power. In addition to the vast distances involved, roads were generally poor, and much of the countryside was undeveloped, offering little to a foraging army. Consider the various conflicts fought in North America -- colonial wars, the Revolutionary War, and the War of 1812 -- and one finds that often the biggest challenge in planning a campaign was just getting to the battlefield without starving en route. Fighting the enemy was almost incidental.

The ability of the Union Army to utilize existing rail systems as well as develop them further and run a constructive and detailed logistics plan through them could be seen as the greatest advantage that the government had to reunification. In Lincoln's own words his understanding of the situation was made clear, repeatedly.

A deem it of importance that the loyal regions of East Tennessee and western North Carolina should be connected with Kentucky, and other faithful parts of the Union, by railroad. I therefore recommend, as a military measure, that Congress provide for the construction of such road, as speedily as possible.... Kentucky and the general government co-operating, the work can be completed in a very short time; and when done, it will be not only of vast present usefulness, but also a valuable permanent improvement, worth its cost in all the future.

Gable brings to the forefront a statistical analysis of the rail system, as an integral logistical tool, as the ability of the rail system to transport goods was far superior to traditional methods. Steam powered locomotive, where at the open of the civil war, in 1861 the dominant fuel transport of the era, and their ability to carry massive amounts, and their own fuel to do so was essential to the war effort. Lincoln new this from the start, and therefore demonstrated supreme leadership in appointing experts to oversee these logistical operations, to take government lead in harnessing this new and effective transportation tool. Taking strategic advantage, especially in the south the government not only dominated this form of transportation but set a later precedence for government or at least centralized control of transportation resources.

What exactly did steam power do for military logistics? Obviously, a railroad train could carry more tons of cargo than a mule-drawn wagon, but this alone did not confer any logistical advantage, for one could make up the difference in tonnage simply by adding more mules and wagons. The steam locomotive's advantage resided in the fact that it could haul more supplies farther on a given amount of fuel (see table 1). A team of six mules drawing a wagon carrying 1.5 tons of supplies could travel approximately 333 miles on one ton of food. Multiplying 1.5 tons by 333 miles yields 500 ton-miles of transport capacity generated by that ton of mule forage. In contrast, a Civil War-era freight locomotive could travel only thirty-five miles or so on a ton of fuel, but its payload could be as high as 150 tons, yielding 5,250 ton-miles per ton of fuel consumed. (Steamboats, incidentally, did even better.)

Due to the heavy emphasis on steam transportation, especially by rail the government was better equipped to man and supply vast areas of the nation in combat. The train also traveled at a far greater speed than other more traditional forms of transport, as much as 5 times faster than the mule-drawn wagons of the day. Therefore fewer vehicles were needed and supplies and people arrived in far better condition than they had in the past.

Troops traveling by train rather than on foot experienced less fatigue and fewer instances of straggling and desertion, even though the freight cars used for most troop movements were anything but comfortable. Supplies hauled by rail were more likely to reach the troops in useable condition, owing both to the speed of delivery and to the shelter afforded by enclosed railroad cars.

There are countless examples of the alterations that these controls had over the war logistics as well as the advantage it afforded the government to control the rail systems.

A in 1864, Major General William T. Sherman waged an offensive campaign with an army of 100,000 men and 35,000 animals (see map 1). His supply line consisted of a single-track railroad extending 473 miles from Atlanta to his main supply base at Louisville. Sherman estimated that this rail line did the work of 36,800 wagons and 220,800 mules!

The Atlanta campaign, won by Sherman is but one example of the logistic advantage of the rail system, in government control. This is not to say that the Confederate army did not also have control of such resources, as they controlled many of what are known as the interior lines, or rail lines that led into the center of fighting, rather than exterior lines that flanked the general area of combat. The difference seems to be that the Union rail lines were superior to those held by the Confederates and therefore made the interior lines less than effective by traditional standards, even though they were significantly more strategically placed. Gable gives two apposing examples of this change in what he calls the irrelevance of geographical disposition created by the superior Union rails, controlled by the government.

Effective use of railroads by the force on exterior lines might allow it to move as fast or faster than the force on the inside. In September 1863 Lieutenant General James Longstreet's corps of 12,000 men traveled by rail, on interior lines, from Virginia to northern Georgia where it reinforced General Braxton Bragg's Army of Tennessee at the Battle of Chickamauga. Longstreet's corps traveled roughly 800 miles in about twelve days. Two weeks after the Confederate victory at Chickamauga, two Union corps (the XI and XII), totaling 25,000 men, traveled 1,200 miles from Virginia to the Chattanooga front, where they reinforced the defeated Army of the Cumberland (see map 2). This movement on exterior lines also took about twelve days, even though the distance was greater and the number of troops larger. Thus, the more efficient Union railroads demonstrated the potential to nullify Confederate interior lines.

The control of the rail system, be it interior or exterior also dictated the distribution of the fighting, because the rails dictated the proximity of soldiers and supplies. It is therefore unique up to this point that a form of transportation dictates the battle lines of a war and created a much smaller scope of fighting in many cases.

Paradoxically, at the level of the individual field armies, railroads actually restricted maneuver. Field armies tended to bunch up around their railheads. One reason for this was the interface at the railhead of two very different modes of transportation. Up to the railhead, supplies and reinforcements traveled on the industrial-age railroad. Beyond the railhead, transportation depended upon muscle power. In other words, it was often easier to move troops and supplies hundreds of miles from the home front to the railhead than it was to move even a few miles beyond it. Like water behind a dam, armies gathered in large, nearly unassailable masses around their railheads.

The Potomac Union army is the best example given by Gable in this demonstration of change:

The Union Army of the Potomac spent most of the war operating on one of two railheads -- the Orange and Alexandria Railroad and the Aquia Creek section of the Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Potomac (see map 3). The Aquia Creek line was particularly noteworthy; railroad cars could run straight through Washington D.C. To Alexandria, where they were loaded onto barges carrying eight cars apiece. Steam-powered tugs took the barges to Aquia Creek where the cars were reassembled into trains and run to the front at Falmouth, opposite Fredericksburg. A sixteen-car train could travel from Washington to Falmouth in twelve hours. There was no transloading involved. By 1863 the Aquia Creek line averaged about 800 tons of supplies (eighty railroad cars) per day (see table 3).

Subsequently, a great deal of fighting in this area took place in the general area of Fredericksburg, as there was then little need to transport this mass of supplies and men from the railhead, and therefore the mule-transport system was not relied upon as heavily, as it would have had to be if the fighting moved farther away from the railheads.

Additionally, the army standing near a railhead had significant advantage in that it could reinforce and re-supply faster than any outside force, attempting to attack it and relying on muscle power to do so.

If one were to juxtapose the two maps above, it would be realized that the Confederate army, at least up to 1863 had a considerable advantage, looking simply at the number of rail lines they controlled. Yet, the difference is made for the two forces when the Union rail lines are continually improved upon, in the face of superior technology to begin with, as the war goes on and as the interior lines become less strategically advantageous to the Confederates. Furthermore, it seems that government control, by the forces that had greater resources, and less real strategic damage to their own land would be at advantage as the war went on. Lincoln's appointment of experts to logistical forces, both military and civilian proved extremely useful to the effort of reunification of the seceded states and the official U.S. government, as did the establishment of official governmental control over the rail lines. The rail system, through the rail car hospital even made fighting injury and illness different than had been done in the past, as the system allowed the hospital to travel to the greatest area of need.

In fact many officers of the Union and Confederate armies were given commendation as much for their ability to run a campaign as for their ability to help build railroads, and use them effectively, as well as sabotage those that were in the hands of the enemy.

The Union had superior technology but more importantly superior ability to apply what some experts call "railroad generalship."

Civil War generals had to learn "railroad generalship" in the field. Robert E. Lee graduated from West Point in 1829-the same year that the first steam locomotive ran in the United States. Needless to say, his formal military education included nothing on railroads. The situation had changed little, if at all, ten years later when Ulysses S. Grant graduated. These men, like other higher commanders, quickly learned that railroad generalship was a critical factor at all levels of war. Railroad generalship at the strategic level dealt with long-distance movements of troops and war resources. Since most American railroads in the 1860s were still small-scale local enterprises, such movements typically involved coordination among multiple corporate entities.

The government took action by establishing a dominance in a partnership with private rail lines, as most were still local and private enterprises at the time of the war.

The Union had to figure out a way to organize and manage a transportation system, that they neither owned nor controlled, or really even completely understood. For this reason the Union created a system of cooperation that allowed the military to manage, with help and learn about how to manage the Southern rails as they were captured.

A the military desired priority treatment by the railroads, but railroad managers still had an obligation to show a profit and to maintain civilian traffic. Railroad corporations, civil government, and the military were all involved in this delicate balancing act. On the Union side, the solution to this challenge involved both formal legislation guaranteeing military priorities and an informal agreement that the railroads could support the war effort and still turn a fair profit. In January 1862, the United States Congress authorized President Abraham Lincoln to seize control of the railroads and telegraph for military use. The operation of any rail lines seized by the military was entrusted to a new War Department agency called the U.S. Military Rail Roads (USMRR). In practice, however, the USMRR restricted its authority to Southern rail lines captured in the course of the war. Except in time of extreme emergency, the military counted on cooperation rather than coercion in dealing with Northern railroads. Realistically, the military had no choice. Relatively few military men were experts in railroad transportation. The true experts in railroad generalship at the strategic level were the civilian executives who managed railroads as a profession. The Union government went a step further, by actually commissioning, civilian railroad men and placing them in positions of responsibility within the USMRR. For example, Daniel C. McCallum, one-time general superintendent of the Erie Railroad, became director and superintendent of the USMRR, with the rank of brigadier general. Herman Haupt, once the chief engineer, of the Pennsylvania, became chief of construction and transportation in the Virginia theater. He also eventually attained the rank of brigadier general. At an even higher level, Thomas a. Scott, vice president of the Pennsylvania Railroad, served as an assistant secretary of war from 1861 to 1862. John W. Garrett, president of the vital and vulnerable Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, enjoyed direct access to the secretary of war, providing him with technical advice and administrative assistance.... Despite its flaws, the Union railroad system succeeded because it granted authority to individuals who knew how to make the trains run.

The structure of the USMRR was as follows:

Within this loose structure the Union could manage and distribute troops through cooperation in the North, with Railroad men there and through the lessons learned there for the management of the railroads in the south. Through all the conflicts that were created by military commanders not knowing exactly how the rail systems work, the Union seemed to be able to logistically recover. Yet, when such conflict grew worse, and possibly as the real turning point, Lincoln hired a civilian to manage the system and help it develop to meet the needs of both the private enterprise, that it maintained and the war effort. This civilian was the unsung hero, spoken of earlier, Herman Haupt who forwarded a set of principles that were simple and effective and were also strategically accepted by the Secretary of War

No military officers were to interfere in the running of trains.

Supplies would be sent forward only as needed.

Trains reaching the front were to be unloaded immediately by anyone available. Officers who refused to cooperate faced dismissal.

Where telegraph communications were unavailable, trains would run according to a rigid schedule. All trains departed on schedule, fully loaded or not. Extra trains would pick up the slack.

On lines where the absence of sidings prevented opposing trains from passing each other, convoys of five or six trains would travel as a group. Each convoy delivered its cargo and returned to base before the next convoy started out.

Haupt, basically reinforced the fact that strategic errors would be inevitable under the old system of organization, as long as those who were not experts in dealing with the logistics of a railroad were continually making it difficult for those who were to do their job. This change creates a tactical advantage for the Union, as those who were the best able to do so were then in charge of the everyday running of the lines. From this point forward things went much more smoothly and the rails were of even greater advantage.