The Rise of Rail-Power in War and Conquest, 1833-1914

by Edwin A. Pratt

Then a railway must be regarded as a delicate piece of transportation machinery which can easily be thrown out of order, and is capable of being worked only by railwaymen as skilled in the knowledge of its mechanism, and as experienced in the details of its complicated operation, as military officers themselves are assumed to be in the technicalities of their own particular duties. The Chief Goods Manager of a leading line of railway who offered to take the place of a General at the seat of war would arouse much mirth in the Army at his own expense. It is, nevertheless, quite conceivable that the General would himself not be a complete success as a Chief Goods Manager. In the earliest days of railways it was assumed that the men best qualified both to manage them and to control the large staffs to be employed would be retired Army officers. This policy was, in fact, adopted for a time, though it was abandoned, after a fair trial, in favour of appointing as responsible railway officers men who had undergone training in the railway service, and were practically acquainted alike with its fundamental principles and its technical details.

In the operation of this delicate and complicated piece of machinery dislocation of traffic may result from a variety of causes, even when such operation is conducted by men of the greatest experience in railway working; but the risk, alike of blocks and interruptions and of accidents involving loss of life or destruction of valuable property must needs be materially increased if military commanders, or officers, themselves having no practical knowledge of railway working, and influenced only by an otherwise praiseworthy zeal for the interests of their own service, should have power either to force a responsible railwayman to do something which he, with his greater technical knowledge, knows to be impracticable, or to hamper and interfere with the working of the line at a time of exceptional strain on its resources.

Under, again, a misapprehension of the exact bearing of the principle of military control of railways for military operations in time of war, there was developed in various campaigns a tendency on the part of commanders and subordinate officers (1) to look upon railways and railwaymen as subject to their personal command, if not, even, to their own will, pleasure and convenience, so long as the war lasted; (2) to consider that every order they themselves gave should be at once carried out, regardless either of orders from other directions or of any question as to the possibility of complying therewith; and (3) to indulge in merciless denunciations, even if not in measures still more vigorous, when their orders have not been obeyed.

Apart from other considerations, all these things have a direct bearing on the efficiency of the railway itself as an instrument in the carrying on of warfare; and it is, therefore, a matter of essential importance to our present study to see how the difficulties in question had their rise, the development they have undergone, and the steps that have been taken to overcome or to guard against them.

It was once more in the American Civil War that the control problem first arose in a really acute degree.

The fundamental principle adopted for the operation of the railways taken possession of by the Federal Government for military purposes was that they should be conducted under orders issued by the Secretary of War or by Army commanders in or out of the field. It was for the Quartermaster's department to load all material upon the cars, to direct where such material should be taken, and to arrange for unloading and delivery; but because the Government had taken possession of the railways; because the Quartermaster's department was to discharge the duties mentioned; and because the railways were to be used during the war for the transport of troops and of Army supplies, therefore certain of the officers came to the conclusion that the whole operation of the particular lines in which they were concerned should be left either to themselves individually or to the Quartermaster's department.

Among those holding this view was General Pope, who, on taking over the command of the Rappahannock Division, on June 26, 1862, disregarded the position held by Herman Haupt as "Chief of Construction and Transportation" in that Division, gave him no instructions, and left him to conclude that the Army could get on very well without his assistance as a mere railwayman. Thereupon Haupt went home. Ten days afterwards he received from the Assistant-Secretary of War a telegram which said:—"Come back immediately. Cannot get on without you. Not a wheel moving." Haupt went back, and he found that, what with mismanagement of the lines and the attacks made on them by Confederates, not a wheel was, indeed, moving in the Division. His own position strengthened by his now being put in "exclusive charge of all the railways within the limits of the Army of Virginia," he was soon able to set the wheels running again; and from that time General Pope exercised a wise discretion in leaving the details of railway transportation to men who understood them.

Then there was a General Sturgis who, when Haupt called on him one day, received him with the intimation, "I have just sent a guard to your office to put you under arrest for disobedience of my orders in failing to transport my command." It was quite true. Haupt had failed to obey his orders. Sturgis wanted some special trains to convey 10,000 men, with horses and baggage, the short distance of eighteen miles. The railway was a single-track line; it had only a limited equipment of engines and cars; there was the prospect of further immediate requirements in other directions, and Haupt took the liberty of thinking that he had better keep his transportation for more pressing needs than a journey to a prospective battle-field only eighteen miles away—the more so as if the men were attacked whilst they were in the train they would be comparatively helpless, whereas if they were attacked when on the road—doing what amounted to no more than a single day's march—they would be ready for immediate defence. These considerations suggest that, of the two, the railwayman was a better strategist than the General.

Sturgis followed up his intimation to Haupt by taking military possession of the railway and issuing some orders which any one possessing the most elementary knowledge of railway operation would have known to be impracticable. Meanwhile Haupt appealed by telegraph to the Commander-in-Chief, who replied:—"No military officer has any authority to interfere with your control over railroad. Show this to General Sturgis, and, if he attempts to interfere, I will arrest him." Told what the Commander-in-Chief said in his message, Sturgis exclaimed, "He does, does he? Well, then, take your damned railroad!"

Haupt found it possible to put at the disposal of Sturgis, early the following morning, the transportation asked for; but at two o'clock in the afternoon the cars were still unoccupied. On the attention of Sturgis being called to this fact he replied that he had given his orders but they had been disobeyed. Thereupon the cars were withdrawn for service elsewhere—the more so since no other traffic could pass until they had been cleared out of the way. The net results of the General's interference was that traffic on the lines was deranged for twenty-four hours, and 10,000 men were prevented from taking part in an engagement, as they might have done had they gone by road.