No1 Fi'. 0, 15'418

No1 fi'. 0, 15'418 ,RAILROADS OF THE SOUTH BEFORE 1860 THESIS Presented to the Graduate Council of the North Texas State College in Partial Fulfillment of the requirements For the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS By Jame s D. Carter, B.S. Evant, Texas June, 1950 ' C.LIP TABLE OF CONTENTS page LIST OF TABLES . * . * . * . * vi LIST OF MAPS . vii Chapter INTRCDUJ TION . * Characteristics of the South and Its Transportation Before 1830 Factors contributing to the Need for Better Transportation System Summary of the Geography of the South Natural Trade Centers of the South Factors Related to Railroad Construction I. THE INTRODUCTION O RAILROADS INTO THE SOUTH . 18 Charleston's Problems Projection of the Charleston and hamburg Railroad Construction of the Railroad Early Success Projection of Feeder Lines Louisville, Charleston, and Cincinnati Project II. MAJOR RAILROADS OF GEORGIA . 44 Georgia R railroad and Banking Corpany Central of Georgia Railroad System Macon and Western Railroad Southwestern Railroad Western and Atlantic Railroad III. MINOR RAILROADS OF TE EASTERN COTTON BELT . 80 Inland South Carolina Railroads Coastal Railroads of South Carolina inor Roads of Southern Georgis and Florida Minor roads in the Western Part of the Area Final Attempts to Build Trans--montane Lines iii IV. RAILROADS OF TOBACCO REGION OF VIRGINIA AND NORTH CAROLINA . 104 Railroad Construction in Virginia Connection of Virginia and Tennessee Railroads Summary of Railroad Construction in Virginia North and South Railroads of North Carolina East and "est Railroads of North Carolina Summary of Railroad Construction in North Carolina V. RAILROADS OF THI BLUE GRASS RGION . 144 Early Transportation Situation Railroad Construction in the Region Summary of Connections to other Regions Sumnary of Railroad Construction in Tennessee VI, RAILROADS OF T WESTERN COTTON tELT EAT OF THE :IISSIIPPI RIVER . ....... ..... .. 164 Minor Roads of New Orleans Area The New Orleans-Nashville Project The New Orleans-Memphis Railroad The Mississippi Central Railroad The Mobile and Ohio Railroad Links in a Savannah to Vicksburg railroad Minor Roads of the Region Characteristics of Railroad Construction in the Region VII. RAILROADS W&T 0 TH11OF ISISSIiYI RIVER . 195 Railroad Construction in Texas Railroad Construction in Louisiana Railroad Construction in Arkansas Outlook at Beginning of Civil War VIII. T1E SOUTH AND ThE PACIfIC RAILROAD . 228 Conflicts tffecting the Location of Routes Evolution of the Southern Pacific Poutes Prospects for Construction in Early Fifties Reasons for Failure to Construct a Pacific Railroad before 1860 iv IX. CONCLUSION . ,. , , , . 241 Character of' Railroad Consruction in the South Improvements in Construction and Operation Summary of Mileage Financial Structure of Southern Iailroads Southern Railroads and Labor Effects of Railroad Construction upon the Eco- nomuic, Social, and Political Structure oi the South The ailroads and tie Negro before 180 . The Regulation of Railroads in the Ante-Bellu South Strategic Position of Southern Railroads in the Coming Civil War ILIORAPY . .. ......... .. 267 V LIST OF TABLES T able Page 1. Growth of Georgia Railroad and Banking Company from 1834 to 1860. Part I . 52 Growth of Georgia Railroad and Banking Company from 1834 to 1860. Part II . 53 2. Central of Georria Railroad Earnings, 1840-1860 . .* * * . 59 3. Macon and Western Railroad Company Statistics, 1848-1860 . a - a - a a a a a a . 63 4. Statistics of Southwestern Railroad Company . 67 5. Western and Atlantic Railroad Financial Summary . 78 6. Railroad Statistics of Virginia 1860 . 133 7. Growth of ailroad Mileage in North Carolina .. 141 8. c Kailroaa onstruction in Texas 1854-1861 . 219 9. Land Grants to Texas Pailroads -- Ante-Bellum Period . a . -. 219 10. Loans made to Texas Railroads before the Civil War. 220 11. Surveys of Pacific Railroad Routes . 238 12. Railroad Mileage in the South to 1860 . 245 vi LIST OF MAPS Maps page 1. Railroads Constructed in South Carolina before the Civil War . 43 2. Railroads constructed in Georgia before the Civil War . * . 79 3. Railroads of the Tobacco Region . .. 143 4. Railroads of the Blue Grass Region with Con- nections to Surrounding Regions in 1860 . 163 5. Railroads of the Western Cotton Belt East of the Mississippi River . .... .... 194 6. Railroads West of the Mississippi River . 227 7. Railroads of the South 1840 . 261 8. Railroads of the South 1850. 262 9. Railroads of the South 1860 . 263 vii INTRODUCTION The South, before 1860, was an area that produced staple crops and depended almost wholly upon the outside world to consume then. Outside sources supplied the area with a large part of its food supplies and almost all of the needed manufactured products. The first settlers of the area established their homes along the seacoast and rivers. As late as 1818,, Colonel Abraham Blanding stated that two- thirds of the market crops of South Carolina were raised within five ,iiles of the rivers and tne remainder within ten 1 niles of other navigable water. The methods of transportation of the people and their goods remained about the same as it had existed for many generations. On land the inhabi- tants walked, rode horses, or bounced about in crude wagons or carriages drawn by horses or by oxen. On the sea sailing vessels were used. but sails were found to be impractical on rivers, and canoes and barges were propelled by human power except in the most favorable places where horses drew keelboats. Progress was tiresomae and slow under the most favorable circum- stances, and under adverse conditions broke down completely. 2 1 Niles' National Register, Vol. XV, p.,135. 2 Franklin M. Reck, TheRomance of American Transpor- tation, pp. 236-237. 1 IM~eiMa siR 2 The invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney in 1793 made possible a great expansion of cotton production 3 and at this time there seemed to be an unlimited market for cotton. The indigo planters, whose market and production failed about 1800, turned their labor toward the production of cotton, as did the rice planters who had suffered severely because of the embargo during the Napoleonic Wars.4 Practi- cally all Southern capital was invested in plant at ions., leaving very little for investment in other activities. The capitalists living in the South were not interested in invest- ing in transportation facilities, leaving to the rest of the world the commerce between the world's ports and those of the South. The concentration of the products of the plantations for export and the internal distribution of supplies were diffi- cult for outside capitalists to undertake. Consequently, they were undertaken by the Southern people. As the more accessible areas became crowded., men gradually forced their way inland alone the routes most easily traveled, leaving large areas un- developed. As this process continued a dire need arose for the development of a faster and easier means of transportation, if further profitable development was to take place. An article written in the La Grange, Georgia, Monument in 1853 reported an estimated cotton crop, in that interior area, of 120,000 JU.B. Phillips, Life and Labor in the Old South, p. 94. Stuart Dagget, Principles of Inland Transportation, p. 78. 3 bales, stating that at the present (1853) ratio of progres- sion in cotton culture, in three more years all the ox-teams available could not move the crop. In addition to the routes from the interior to the seaports, there was a need for routes connecting the areas, one with another, to facili- tate the exchange of needed products. The geography of the region not only determined the need for transportation, but also the location of the routes and the engineering problems to be solved in their construction. A survey of the South reveals that it is composed of seven natural divisions, each of which has particular and specific transportation problems. The Tobacco Region forms one of the most important divisions of the South. It is made up of Lowland and Piedmont Virginia, most of Maryland, and the Albermarle district of North Carolina. Along the coast is the tidewater belt rang- ing, from fifty to one hundred and fifty miles wide, the soil of which is alluvial and rich in the valleys of the several rivers that cross it transversely from the mountains farther back. Between the river valleys there are slight rises, the soil of which is poor, made up chiefly of shift- ing sand dunes. The rivers are broad, muddy, sluggish, and La Grange Yonuent, reprinted in the New Orleans Picayune, March 10, 1853. 6 U.3. Phillips, A History of Transportation in the Eastern Cotton Belt to~1860, p. 1. 4 subject to overflow, with low banks and broad valleys. They are navigable for some distance upstream and the mouths of those emptying along the coast of Virginia and iMaryland offer good harbors as a rule, but those of North Carolina are blocked with sand bars. Behind the tidewater belt, and between it and t he mounta ins, is the Piedmont belt from forty to fifty miles wide. It is a plateau country, rugged, broken, and hilly. The line between the tidewater belt and the Piedmont is known as the "fall line", so called because the rivers, when passing from the Piedmont into the tidewater belt, drop so abruptly that rapids, and in some instances falls, are formed. Above the "fall line" the rivers are not navigable. The Blue Ridge of the Appalachian Range of mountains forms the western boundary of the Tobacco region, the name derived from its chief product, tobacco. It was the tobacco culture in the plantations along the Rappahannock and James Rivers which first showed that Negro slaves could be e employed with profit,. Slavery spread fr om this area to the plantation areas producing indigo, rice, cotton, and sugar cane.

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