Millions Of Dollars Were Spent By Southern Businessmen Before The War To Build A Railroad System That Linked The Cotton-Growing Areas To The Coast

Millions of dollars were spent by southern businessmen before the war to build a railroad system that linked the cotton-growing areas to the coast is the second fact about Confederate Manufacturing we want to mention. On the eve of the Civil War, the American rail network had amassed around 28,900 miles (46,500 km) in just 30 years from its inception (1861-1865). About 70% of this, or 21,300 miles, was centered in the Northeast and Midwest, whereas the Confederacy only had access to 9,022 miles. The railroad network in the Southern states was superior to that in the North and many European countries, despite the fact that the private corporations who built the train lines used different gauges for their tracks. Despite this disparity, the South did have one edge at the time because the majority of its trackage was spanking new. Richmond, Atlanta, and Chattanooga were the South's three most significant rail hubs. West of the Mississippi, very little track has yet to be installed.

The Confederate leadership was reluctant to realize the significance of the railroads in the struggle, despite the fact that wars have historically been waged to control supply hubs and road connections. The Southern railroads were in poor condition by September 1863. As soon as the war started, when many train workers moved north to support the Union war effort, things started to get worse. Few of the 100 railroads in the South that existed before 1861 were longer than 100 miles. The South had never been as excited about the railroad industry as the North; its residents preferred an agricultural lifestyle and hired men from the Northern states to do the mechanical work.