October 8, 1862 | Illustration
This image from the October 8, 1862 issue of Harper's Weekly depicts three men at Fair View, Maryland observing Confederate forces in the distance working to destroy the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.
1861 | Photograph
N.D. | Map
If the presence of the Union army and/or a battle constituted a war zone, then only in Virginia did the Civil War?s destruction touch the majority of counties. Vast sections of the South remained out of the war zone, but over the course of the war destruction tended to follow closely along the pathways of the major lines of communication and transportation. From Paul F. Paskoff, ?Measures of War: A Quantitative Examination of the Civil War?s Destructiveness in the Confederacy,? Civil War History, Vol. 54, No. 1 (March 2008). (Reproduced with permission of Paul F. Paskoff)
July 25, 1864 | Photograph
June 21, 1862 | Illustration
Corinth was at the junction of two railroad lines, the Mobile & Ohio and the Memphis & Charleston, and so was strategically important to both sides. This image was published shortly after the Seige of Corinth, in which the city was taken by Union forces.
July 2, 1864 | Illustration
This image from the July 2, 1864 issue of Harper's Weekly depicts Union soldiers under the command of General William T. Sherman near a railroad depot at Resaca, Georgia during the American Civil War.
1862 | Photograph
African American laborers, free and contraband, worked for the Union Army to build and repair rail lines across the South. Note the bent and broken rails scattered in the background, signs of earlier destruction.
March 7, 1863 | Illustration
United States Colored Troops (U.S.C.T.) recruiters in 1863 fanned out along the railroads, especially in Tennessee, stopping at depots along the route to sign up soldiers. Over 180,000 black men volunteered and enlisted for service in the U.S.C.T. Both white regiments and U.S.C.T. units found themselves guarding railroads and watching for guerrillas.
N.D. | Time Table
This "irregular" timetable, published by the United States Military Railroads department, shows arrival and departure times on the Orange and Alexandria Line for "The Government of Operatives Only."
May 12, 1862 | Map
In the wake of the Battle of Hampton Roads, the New York Daily Tribune prints a map of the waterways and fortifications near Norfolk, Virginia.
1864 | Photograph
No. 1. Steam engines ?Telegraph? and ?O. A. Bull? remained in position amid the ruins of a Confederate roundhouse in Atlanta in 1864. The South possessed some of the most beautiful depots and railroad facilities in the nation in 1861. Sherman?s campaigns sought to dismantle the Confederate railroad system and in so doing deny any claim to modernity and progress. African American workers stand atop the old Georgia Railroad flatcar.
March 3, 1860 | Illustration
This image from the March 3, 1860 issue of Harper's Weekly depicts soldiers from the New York state militia on their way to Washington, D.C. to attend the inauguration of a statue of George Washingon.
May 12, 1862 | Map
This front page image illustrates the importance of maps of space and resources (including railroads) to readers of Civil War-era newspapers. Note the Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Potomac Railroad running up the center of the larger map; a number of other rail lines criss-cross the map.
May 9, 1862 | Map
Although small, this map illustrates the interconnection of railroads and battle lines in the South.
July 9, 1864 | Illustration
This image from the July 9, 1863 issue of Harper's Weekly depicts Union soldiers under the command of General William T. Sherman constructing a telegraph line along railroad tracks in Georgia.
1864 | Photograph
This bridge was destroyed and rebuilt several times. In May 1862 General Irwin McDowell employed hundreds of contraband laborers, who replaced the bridge in nine days. Here, in May 1864, the U.S. Military Railroads, again with large numbers of black freedmen, constructed the bridge in forty hours. Photographs such as this one indicated the complexity, cost, and scale of the bridges across many of the South?s rivers and also conveyed the precarious, and sublime, ways the railroad was thought to defy nature.
1861 | Photograph
A trestle railroad bridge built by the United States Military Railroad Construction Corps.
January 29, 1864 | Letter
An inquiry about re-hiring a blacksmith for the military railroad.
November 19, 1863 | Letter
McCafferty notes damage done to Engine Rapidan by contrabands.
October 16, 1864 | Letter
Labor bosses ask Adna Anderson to pressure the Quarter Master to approve the sale of winter clothing to contrabands.