Civil War Irony Confederate Commanders and the Destruction of Southern Railways T By Jeffrey N. Lash he American Civil War saw revolutionary developments in the conduct of war. Centuries-old methods of fixedposition warfare gave way to an emphasis on mobility and maneuvering. Key to this change was the increased role of railroads in the United States. This new type of warfare grew out of principles advocated by military theorists Karl von Clausewitz andAntoine Henri Jomini during the Napoleonic Wars. Before the French Revolution, military commanders had led small professional armies in local theaters and concentrated on capturing enemy positions, such as fortified cities or strategic bastions. They accordingly established supply bases close to siege or battle lines. Clausewitz and Jomini challenged accepted practices by relying on rapid movement and maneuver aimed at the destruction of hostile armies. These more mobile armies would have to operate at greater distances from supply bases, but the two theorists maintained that military commanders could develop improved methods of field transportation to ensure reliable overland supply and to preserve effective strategic mobility. The railroad provided that promised mobility. It was first used as an instrument of war (though tentatively and clumsily) in the Crimea in the 1850s. By 1861 railroads had changed the face of industrial society and provided Union and Confederate commanders with a true test of the new principles of rapid movement in warfare. Some of these commanders, lacking formal doctrine, training, or the lessons of experience to guide them, understandably committed costly blunders, particularly in the first few years of the war. In attempts to explain, excuse, or extenuate these blunders, however, historians and military writers have exaggerated the generals' lack of professional preparation. This exaggeration cannot be justified. Commanders such as Robert E. Lee, Pierre G. T. Beauregard, and Joseph E. Johnston, West Point graduates who had acquired engineering and surveying experience with railroads before the war, skillfully applied the modern strategic doctrines of overland mobility, rapid maneuver, and concentration of forces. On balance, while many Confederate (and Union) generals increasingly used railroads to transport men, ordnance, and supplies or to achieve strategic concentration of forces, many others habitually repeated the same mistakes. The railroad blunders of these Confederate commanders reflected not a deficiency of preparation but rather a lack of adaptability, sagacity, imagination, and resourcefulness. In short, their lack of prewar experience with railroads proved less important than their avoidance of experimentation with mechanized transport once the war began.1 An examination of the reasons why Confederate generals destroyed Southern railroads reveals the inability or unwillingness of some of these commanders to admit or learn from their mistakes and to adapt to the new type of warfare evolving. It should be emphasized that many Union commanders also destroyed Southern railroads. William S. Rosecrans in Tennessee, Ulysses S. Grant in Mississippi, and William T. Sherman in Georgia and in the Carolinas repeatedly wrecked railroads to disrupt Confederate military and logistical operations. Union generals, however, carefully avoided destroying Southern railroads controlled by Federal forces, that is, those lines operated by the U.S. Military Railroads, an operational component of the U.S. Army's Quartermaster Department. Nor did they exhibit hesitation and vacillation in rebuilding railroads destroyed by either army, as so many Confederate commanders did. Why, then, did Confederate generals destroy railroads on which their armies vitally depended for support? The following case study identifies and analyzes five factors that account for much of the destruction: strategic deterrence, tactical disruption, logistical interdiction, intellectual miscalculations, and doctrinal misconceptions. Strategic deterrence, on most occasions the predominant reason, served two interrelated purposes: to forestall or retard Union strategic advances and to protect Confederate strategic retreats. Hindering Union advances by wrecking railroads, however, proved difficult to accomplish, regardless of the theater. In the east, for example, Maj. Gen. Robert E. Lee, the commander of the Virginia state forces in April 1861, endeavored to defend the northern borders of the Old Dominion. He recognized the necessity of preventing Union forces from using the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad in an effort to recapture Harpers Ferry, the site of a U.S. Gen. Robert E. Lee, unlike many Confederate commanders, soon realized that destroying railroad trains and bridges would not long delay Union advances. arsenal in the Shenandoah Valley. Consequently, when in May 1861 Union armies threatened to make a converging movement on Harpers Ferry, Lee ordered the destruction of Baltimore & Ohio tracks, trestles, and tunnels. His action briefly succeeded in isolating and protecting Harpers Ferry from an immediate attack, but it ultimately failed to prevent a Union invasion of the valley. Thereafter, in campaign after campaign, Lee, as commander of the Army of Northern Vir ginia, attacked the Baltimore & Ohio to thwart anticipated Federal offensives. Moreover, after the Antietam and Gettysburg campaigns in 1862 and 1863, he destroyed the Winchester & Potomac and the Manassas Gap railroads to forestall Union movements into the Shenandoah Valley and through the passes of the Blue Ridge Mountains in northern Virginia. Over the summer and fall months of 1862, Lee also inflicted heavy damage on the Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac Railroad to discourage Federal forces from establishing a base at Aquia Creek, near Fredericksburg, and launching an overland march south on Richmond. Nevertheless, none of Lee's destructive Joseph Johnston destroyed the Harpers Ferry bridge to prevent Union rail transport from crossing the Potomac. raids on railroads significantly delayed a series of renewed advances of Union armies into northern Virginia.2 Nor did Brig. Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, the Confederate commander at Harpers Ferry in June 1861, succeed in deterring a Union strategic advance by destroying railroads. Specifically, Johnston sought to prevent Maj. Gen. Robert Patterson's army from crossing the Potomac River, invading the valley, and operating against the Confederate position at Harp The destruction of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad bridge at Harpers Ferry angered pro-Southern Marylanders who had financial interests in the railroad. ers Ferry. To frustrate Patterson's plans, Johnston ordered Col. Thomas J. ("Stonewall") Jackson to tear up tracks and demolish trestles on the Baltimore & Ohio between Point of Rocks, Maryland, and Martinsburg, Virginia. Undeterred, Patterson moved his army across the Potomac and advanced on Martinsburg. At this juncture, Johnston evacuated Harpers Ferry and not only destroyed the Potomac River railroad bridge there but also, without clear military necessity, ordered the burning of over 42 locomotives and 380 cars at Martinsburg. Regardless of strategic considerations, Johnston should not have destroyed the Baltimore & Ohio property, because his action outraged and estranged pro-Confederate supporters in Maryland who had large financial interests in the railroad.3 Confederate generals in the Carolinas and the west also damaged or destroyed railroads, but their actions failed to deter Union strategic advances.* Since neither Clausewitz nor Jomini had recommended specific methods of deterring strategic advances of enemy armies, especially in the context of a modern railroad war, Confederate generals had to experiment. The destruction of railroads and rolling stock to hinder the movement of a mobile enemy army fre quently proved ineffective, unnecessary, and unwise. Nevertheless, Confederate commanders implemented a strategy of delay or the scorched-earth policy by destroying Southern railroads. As the war progressed, commanders such as Lee, Beauregard, and John B. Hood recognized the uselessness of attempting to stop Union strategic advances by demolishing trestles or burning rolling stock. Other commanders, however, such as J. E. Johnston, Braxton Bragg, and William J. Hardee, never learned this les son. The destruction of railroads to deter or retard Union strategic advances failed for several reasons. For one, Confederate commanders frequently failed to distinguish a strategic advance from a reconnaissance, a demonstration, or a feint. In March 1862, for example, Maj. Gen. Richard S. Ewell, confusing a Union reconnaissance near the Rappahannock River for a determined enemy attempt to cross the river, precipitately ordered the burning of a railroad bridge. 5 Similarly, in February 1865, as Sherman's forces approached Bamberg, a point on the South Carolina Railroad sixty miles below Columbia, a Union staff officer gloated over the Confederate action, noting in his diary that the "Rebels burned all bridges" Railroads in the west suffered as greatly as those in the east. Brig. Gen. Braxton Bragg, for example, ordered all bridges on the Nashville & Decatur line destroyed because of rumors that the Union army would march against Decatur. over the Edisto River, "including the R.R. bridge which was precisely what we wished. They have by this means prevented themselves from annoying us any while we remain here." A Federal feint at Fort Motte, southeast of Columbia, prompted Confederate defenders to destroy another railroad bridge. The staff officer, in commenting on this episode, wryly noted that the "enemy set it on fire to prevent us from using it to cross the Army. They could not possibly more fully carry out our intentions."'" Moreover, Confederate generals often damaged or destroyed railroads on the basis of inaccurate or incomplete intelligence reports. In November 1862, for example, Braxton Bragg, then at Murfreesboro, ordered a cavalry commander to "keep the Columbia Road in careful observation and destroy all the bridges when you are positively assured of the advance of the enemy." Bragg himself, either uninformed or misinformed, finally ordered all Nashville & Decatur Railroad bridges "effectually destroyed," even though the Federal army at Nashville only threatened to march south against Decatur.7 Last, most Confederate generals also underestimated the remarkable speed with which the Union Construction Corps could rebuild railroads. Robert E. Lee, however, accurately assessed this ability, explaining in September 1862 that "the system adopted by the enemy of repair and substitution of trestle-work for permanent bridges is so perfect that I fear it will only cause delay of a few days in the operations of the [Baltimore & Ohio] road." Clearly, Lee had expected his raids on the Baltimore & Ohio to delay the enemy for several weeks, not a few days, but most other Confederate commanders never appreciated the ineffectiveness of demolishing railroad trestles in situations where the enemy could rebuild them rapidly. 118 The wrecking of Southern railroads to protect Confederate strategic retreatsthe second objective of strategic deterrence also began in the east. In theory, at least, the destruction of railroads could |