How Trains Saved the Union By C. KAY LARSON Disunion Disunion follows the Civil War as it unfolded. TAGS: CHATTANOOGA (TENN), CIVIL WAR (US) (1861-65), RAILROADS, SHERMAN, WILLIAM TECUMSEH On Sept. 20, 1863, Union Gen. William S. Rosecrans was defeated at the crucial battle of Chickamauga that left 16,000 men killed, wounded and captured, after which he retreated into Chattanooga, situated on the south bank of the Tennessee River. Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg pursued him, taking possession of the heights of Missionary Ridge and Lookout Mountain, east and south of town. Rosecrans was trapped – the only main road out of town, along the river toward a railhead that linked Chattanooga with Nashville, was in range of Confederate artillery in the mountains. Rosecrans’s only good supply route was lost. By mid-October Rosecrans’s men were subsisting on half rations and no longer had adequate shoes or clothing. Ten thousand horses and mules had died of starvation, and the remaining draft animals were too weak to even haul ambulances. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, having replaced Rosecrans with Gen. George H. Thomas, wired his new commander to hold Chattanooga at all costs. Thomas promptly replied, “We will hold the town till we starve.” Two days after Chickamauga, Gen. William T. Sherman had been ordered to immediately dispatch forces from Mississippi to assist Rosecrans. Three divisions quickly got underway via Memphis. He arrived in Chattanooga in mid-November, with his men in tow. And forces from the Army of the Potomac also got underway, per orders from President Lincoln. On Sept. 23, reacting to Rosecrans’s first plea for help, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton had begun planning to send west 20,000 troops from the 11th and 12th Corps of the Army of the Potomac, under the command of Gen. Joseph Hooker. When Stanton asked General in Chief Henry W. Halleck how long such a complex move would take, Halleck guessed three months. (That evening, after poring over maps and timetables, the chief of Army telegraph, a young official named Thomas T. Eckert, gave Stanton an estimate of 40 to 60 days.) A rail depot near Chattanooga, Tenn. Library of Congress A rail depot near Chattanooga, Tenn. Having received another urgent telegram for troops from Rosecrans, Stanton, at around 11 p.m., summoned Lincoln from his summer house, the Soldiers’ Home, north of Washington. Lincoln’s secretary John Hay delivered the message personally, while the president changed from his nightclothes. Lincoln was disturbed, but felt he had to go – Stanton had never made such a request before. Once back in the capital, Lincoln, Secretary of State William H. Seward and Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase, as well as War Department officials and officers, assembled about 1 a.m. After much discussion Lincoln approved Stanton’s plan and initial orders were issued. But how were the trains to be routed across half a continent? The council decided it was time to consult professional railroad men. Railroad chiefs John W. Garrett and William P. Smith of the Baltimore and Ohio; Samuel M. Felton of the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore road; and Col. Thomas A. Scott of the Pennsylvania line soon arrived. Working through the night, they determined the number of engines and cars available, and the routes. At 8 a.m., Eckert brought in a new time estimate: it could take as few as 15 days for the two Potomac corps to reach Chattanooga — even though the route would take them as far west as Indianapolis. At that good news, Stanton “jumped for joy.” RELATED Disunion Highlights Fort Sumter Explore multimedia from the series and navigate through past posts, as well as photos and articles from the Times archive. See the Highlights » On the morning of Sept. 25, in Virginia, the 11th and 12th Corps men began boarding railroad cars. At Indianapolis, there was “still good order and good discipline upon the long trains moving steadily upon their way.” Proceeding south, the force detrained and, again, crossed the Ohio River over a makeshift bridge constructed of anchored coal barges. From Louisville, the troops went on to Bridgeport. During this time, telegraphers at stations along the way had keyed their instruments day and night to schedule the trains, and the soldiers had been scrunched onto any platform that moved: passenger, flat and box cars. But it worked: despite a journey of 1,233 miles, the last units reached Chattanooga in 11 days, at the time the largest movement of military forces by rail in history. At Chattanooga, the day after he arrived on Oct. 23, Grant issued orders to break open a second supply line. Hooker’s fresh forces led a surprise attack on Brown’s Ferry, west of the city, capturing and fortifying it. Engineers then secured a pontoon bridge that afforded access to the rail line at Bridgeport via Kelly’s Ferry, only eight miles west. Within a week, the Union soldiers were back on full rations, well clothed and supplied with ammunition. As Grant wrote: “Neither officers nor men looked upon themselves any longer as doomed. The weak and languid appearance of the troops, so visible before, disappeared at once.” Meanwhile, Grant realized that the arrival of Sherman’s divisions would create another supply shortage. Gen. Grenville M. Dodge’s 8,000-man force began rebuilding a second line from Nashville. Among other activities, local mills and blacksmith shops were physically moved into camp. Locomotives, cars and rails were transferred from as far away as Vicksburg. In 40 days, Dodge’s men rebuilt 182 bridges, “many of them over deep and wide chasms,” and repaired 102 miles of track. At a time when modern logistics was still in its infancy and the movement of troops by rail still a little-understood challenge, the Army of the Cumberland pulled off nothing short of a miracle. Chattanooga was saved, setting up the North for its campaign against Atlanta the next year. That effort would vault General Sherman into the pantheon of military history. But the miracle of October 1863 also shows that great men have great supporting casts. Follow Disunion at twitter/NYTcivilwar or join us on Facebook. Sources: Ulysses S. Grant, “Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant”; John Hay, “Lincoln and the Civil War in the Diaries and Letters of John Hay”; Edward Hungerford, “The Story of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, 1827-1927”; James M. McPherson, “Battle Cry of Freedom”; John Emmet O’Brien, “Telegraphing in Battle: Reminiscences of the Civil War”; William Tecumseh Sherman, “Memoirs.” C. Kay Larson is a member of the board of the New York Military Affairs Symposium and the author of “Great Necessities: The Life, Times, and Writings of Anna Ella Carroll, 1815-1894 and “South Under a Prairie Sky: The Journal of Nell Churchill, U. S. Army Nurse and Scout.”
Posted on: Mon, 04 Nov 2013 17:46:37 +0000
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