GDG- Re: Confederate railroads and industry

[Biggsk at aol.com]

Jack writes:

>>>During the entire war, the Confederates never produced a  single railroad 
rail, of any type, U or I.>>>>
 
 Actually, the above is incorrect on two levels.  The "U" rails  were pretty 
much no longer being rolled and were, in fact being replaced by the  better 
"T" rails by the late 1850's.  A good bit of them remained in place,  as did the 
strap iron rails (flat iron laid on wooden blocks - the worst of the  rails 
ever made) when the war broke out.  Robert Black's brilliant  "Railroads of the 
Confederacy" covers this in detail.
 
Secondly, Black also states, as do other sources, that the Atlanta Rolling  
Mill continued to roll iron rails for the railroads through 1861.  The  source 
of your statement is Charles Dew's "Ironmaker To The Confederacy" which  is 
about Tredegar.  However, he made an error and here is how it plays out  in his 
book:
 
Page 274 (Dew) - "Not a single new rail was rolled in the entire  Confederacy 
during the war." (31)
 
Footnote 31 - same page - Black, pp. 124, 152.
 
But if you go to Black's book on Page 124 he states, " Not a single new  rail 
was produced in the Confederacy AFTER (emphasis mine) 1861,"  This is  a much 
different statement than what Dew writes.
 
Black's book details the Atlanta Rolling Mill continued rolling of iron  
rails for railroads through 1861 and how the Confederate Navy began to tap into  
that supply for planned ironclads.  From 1862 onwards, the Atlanta Mill,  the 
only mill of the South still rolling rails when the war began (Tredegar  
stopped in the 1850's due to recession, massive surplus rails from Britain and  less 
expensive Northern produced rails), turned over everything to the CS  Navy.  
Some of the armor plate for the CSS Virginia was rolled in  Atlanta.
 
Black also details how the Southern railroads had some surplus rails in  
storage, including a large supply found during the war, but that this did become  
an acute problem.  One railroad had a small mill that could produce and  
repair rails but its capacity was minute.  Stonewall Jackson's raids in  western 
Virginia removed a large amount of rails from the Baltimore & Ohio  line which 
were used to build a spur into Manassas Junction at Joe Johnston's  request.
 
All the mills could do was re-roll rails that worn out due to overuse and  
these were not as solid as the new rails were.
 


>>>They didn't have the technolody. Evertime sherman made  a necktie, it was 
another noose for the  Confederacy.>>>
Absolutely incorrect.  The South experienced huge industrial growth in  the 
1850's particularly in Georgia, Virginia and Tennessee.  You can check  the 
1850 and 1860 Census figures for proof as well as Richard Goff's excellent  
"Confederate Supply" as well as Harold S. Wilson's "Confederate Industry."   
Further, a number of articles in the various state historical journals also have  
the details.
 
Foundries in both Nashville and Richmond (Tredegar) produced locomotives in  
the 1850's and up through 1860.  They continued to make all the spare parts  
needed to keep them going afterwards as well as the parts for cars, which were  
also produced in the South.  Steam engines for both locomotives and boats  
continued to be produced during the war, but were often of dubious  quality.
 
The only thing they lacked compared to the North, save for a few industrial  
techniques, was capacity to make enough of what they needed. The mills of the  
South could make enough for the private sector's demands OR the War 
Department's  demands, but not both, try as they might (and they certainly tried)!
 
Many of the Southern industries were products of Northerners moving South  to 
build these new firms in new places to dominate the local marketplace.   The 
huge growth in steamboats and railroads created a big demand for further  
industrialization.  The South had more than plentiful raw materials for  making 
war (save lead) but much of it had yet to be fully developed (as in  northern 
Alabama, which would help lead the South out of economic ruin after the  war).  
Additionally, as the railroads fell apart due to lack of good policy  and 
wear, much of what was mined could not be processed by the mills.  So  the 
spiraling down began where the mills could not meet demands placed on them  due to 
lack of labor and raw materials which could not get to them due to the  wearing 
out of the railroads.  Tredegar was getting lots of raw iron from  the 
Shenandoah valley during the war but much of it was brought in by wagons and  this 
was never enough to meet finished product demand.
 
Losses of critical raw material and manufacturing areas like northern  Middle 
Tennessee near Ft. Donelson (which protected the largest concentration of  
iron furnaces in the entire South) badly hurt capacity creating materials  
shortages very early on.
 
The war helped create a giant Southern industrial base, built upon existing  
facilities already there since the late 1840's and into the 1850's, that was  
much more productive by 1864 than it ever was in 1861, and this base helped 
lead  the South after the war, which also created a political change in the  
South.  Basically, had secession taken place in 1840-1850, the South would  not 
have been able to wage a war due to lack of industry.  By 1870, the  industrial 
class would have more than likely supplanted the planter class in  terms of 
political power thus making secession, at least based on agricultural  slavery, 
a moot point.
 

Lastly, Sherman really did not start making his famous "neckties" until  
February, 1864 with his raid on Meridian, MS.  He continued making them  through 
Georgia later that year, but most of the railroads he hit were up and  running 
sometime afterwards.  As a related point, the only existing Sherman  necktie 
that I know of can be found in the Mississippi State Museum in Jackson,  from 
the aforementioned Meridian raid.
 
I have studied the Confederate supply system and its roots for many years  
and have pretty much everything ever written on the topic.  It was a  miracle 
without which the war would have been over quite rapidly.
 
Greg Biggs



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