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  • | Photograph

    "Long Bridge" over the Potomac River, 1864

    The original footbridge across the Potomac was replaced with this railroad bridge in 1864 by the U.S. Military Railroads, connecting Washington, D.C., with the army?s growing camps, hospitals, and defenses near Alexandria, Virginia.

  • | Illustration

    "Repairing Railroad, etc"

    The U.S. Military Railroads rebuilt the South?s railroads in the closing months of the war. African American railroad workers cut timber, broke rock, and hauled gravel for the grading. Their experience on the railroads as trackmen and laborers, as well as firemen and brakemen, continued after the war. In 1880 over 50 percent of all railroad workers in Virginia were black; in Pennsylvania, by contrast, railroad workers were almost uniformly white.

  • | Photograph

    'The ruse of the whistles - the guarded track, Corinth, Mississippi, 1862'

  • | Photograph

    African American Laborers on the U.S. Military Railroad in Northern Virginia, c. 1862 or 1863

    From the beginning of the Civil War, African Americans worked on the railroads, transferring their labor to the Union cause.

  • | Photograph

    African American wood choppers? hut on the Orange & Alexandria Railroad

    African American wood choppers? hut on the Orange & Alexandria Railroad. Black men, many of them formerly enslaved on the South?s railroads, chopped timber for railroad ties, bridges, and fuel for the U.S. Military Railroads. Stationed at remote camps, such as this, they also faced the constant danger of Confederate partisan and guerrilla raids.

  • | Illustration

    Alfred R. Waud, "A Guerrilla", 1862

    When guerrillas attacked Union forces, the northern public was outraged. Confederate guerrillas and partisan rangers attacked the railroad and telegraph systems, opening up the war to civilians and exposing the remorseless nature of the national conflict. Their activities played a central role in the war.

  • | Illustration

    Alfred R. Waud, "Ruins of the Bridge over the Shenandoah River, Loudon Heights Beyond", 1864

    The partisan war in Loudon County, Virginia, turned especially violent in the fall of 1864. Confederate forces under John S. Mosby captured and killed Union soldiers in retaliation for the burning of civilian homes, and Union general George A. Custer responded by hanging seven of Mosby?s men. Then, on November 6, 1864, Mosby executed several more Union soldiers in response. The fighting took place along the Manassas Gap Railroad line and its bridges.

  • | Illustration

    Army of the Cumberland Troop Train

    This image from the November 7, 1863 issue of Harper's Weekly depicts the United States' Army of the Cumberland passing through a substantial cut in the mountains while traveling on the Louisville and Nashville Railroad.

  • | Illustration

    Arrival of Recruits During the Fight at Peeble's Farm

    This image from the October 22, 1864 issue of Harper's Weekly depicts the arrival of fresh recruits by train during the Battle of Peeble's Farm as part of Union General Ulysses S. Grant's Virginia Campaign during the American Civil War.

  • | Photograph

    Barricades at Alexandria, Virginia.

  • | Illustration

    Big Shanty Station

    This image from the July 9, 1863 issue of Harper's Weekly depicts Union soldiers under the command of General William T. Sherman at "Big Shany Station" near Kennesaw, Georgia.

  • | Photograph

    Bird?s Eye View of Machine Shops, with East Yard of Orange and Alexandria Railroad. Alexandria, Va., [1861-1865]

    In the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, African Americans seized the opportunity to work and to travel. Visible just to the left of the railroad shop smokestack and roundhouse stood the old Price and Birch "Slave Pen" at 1315 Duke Street.

  • | Photograph

    Boxcars with Refugees at Railroad, Atlanta, Ga., 1864

    With the capture of Atlanta, General William T. Sherman?s army seized an important rail hub for the Confederacy. This image of refugees and African Americans, sitting on rail cars with their possessions, indicates the massive displacement that came with the war.

  • | Illustration

    Burning the Railroad Bridge at Resaca, Georgia

    This image from the July 2, 1864 issue of Harper's Weekly depicts Union soldiers under the command of General William T. Sherman destroying a railroad bridge at Resaca, Georgia during the American Civil War.

  • | Illustration

    Burning the Rappahannock Railroad Bridge

    This image from the November 7, 1863 issue of Harper's Weekly depicts the burning of the Rappahannock Railway Bridge on October 13, 1863 during the American Civil War.

  • | Photograph

    Cars of U.S. Military Rail Road, and bridge built by soldiers

  • | Photograph

    Confederate guns, Pensacola Bay, 1861

    Columbiad guns of the Confederate water battery at Warrington, Fla., near Pensacola, February 1861. With the railroad to Pensacola under construction and finally completed in May, the Confederates could move large guns and troops more quickly to the coast.

  • | Photograph

    Contrabands at Cumberland Landing, Virginia, May 1862

    In the Peninsular Campaign, Federal forces encountered thousands former slaves who sought freedom and work in the Union army camps. Even if slaves fled slavery, their status was unclear in the first year of the war. In July 1862 Congress declared such refugees from slavery ?forever and henceforth free.?

  • | Photograph

    Cumberland Landing, Federal encampment on the Pamunkey River, Virginia, May 1862

    Federal Encampment on the Pamunkey River, Va., May 1862. Union soldiers came into the South by steamer and train in the first year of the war. They closely observed the landscape, assessing and comparing it to their northern communities.

  • | Photograph

    Depot at Hannover Junction, PA

    Northern railroad stations became places to gather for news and information. President Abraham Lincoln passed through Hanover Junction in November 1863 on his way to Gettysburg for the opening of the national cemetery. Crowds gathered to meet the president.