Railroads in the Civil War: The Impact of Management on Victory and Defeat

5. The 11th and 12th Corps Movement: The Success of Northern Management

5 The 11th and 12th Corps Movement The Success of Northern Management We are continuing to strain every energy to accomplish prompt movement. —John Garrett to Edwin Stanton Although thrown together as a pick-up team, the railroad men demonstrated a thorough knowledge of their business, a creative flexibility with a gift for innovation, confidence, decisiveness, and phenomenal energy levels. The extreme urgency of their assignment fostered a strong spirit of cooperation. Garrett and Scott disliked each other, both personally and as business competitors, but they had a job to do, so they set aside their differences and went to work. Daniel McCallum’s Military Railroad personnel supervised the first stage, shipping twenty-three thousand soldiers, their artillery, equipment , animals, and wagons from the Army of the Potomac in northern Virginia to Washington. The task pressed the capacity of the singletrack Orange & Alexandria Railroad, which continued to perform its mission of sustaining the seventy-seven thousand soldiers remaining with the Army of the Potomac. The suddenness of the movement, the absence of prior notice, and The 11th and 12th Corps Movement 161 the obvious urgency of their orders took the soldiers by surprise. The 111th Pennsylvanians, standing picket duty at Raccoon Ford, had just finished negotiating a business deal: ‘‘Hello, Yank! Are you all over there?’’ ‘‘You bet we’re here, Johnnie. Do you want to surrender and come back into the Union?’’ ‘‘I’ll surrender you if I get ahold of you,’’ would be drawled back. ‘‘But, say, Yank have you’uns got any coffee?’’ ‘‘Dead loads of it, Johnnie Reb. We make it in French pots, and serve it with sugar and cream.’’ ‘‘Will ye trade some of it for tobacco?’’ ‘‘Well, I don’t care. But if you try to play Indian on me I’ll put you where we put the rest of you at Gettysburg.’’ The negotiators waded to the middle of the stream to close the deal.1 Both wild and thoughtful speculation whirled along the camp grapevines. The soldiers knew about Chickamauga from ‘‘the cheering and jollification in the Confederate camp [which meant] that they had received some good news from somewhere.’’ Still, they had recently moved into the area and did not expect to go anywhere so soon.2 Chaplain Lyman Ames of the 29th Ohio noted, ‘‘This move seems sudden and unexpected to Div. commander [General John W. Geary].’’ Isaac W. Gardner wrote his parents that his 1st Ohio Light Artillery had built new stables and had started digging defensive positions ‘‘until about 2 o’clock when we received orders to cease work as we had got to march.’’ Lt. Colonel Ario Pardee, commanding the 147th Pennsylvania, dryly summed it up later in a letter to his father: 1. John Richards Boyle, Soldiers True: The Story of the 111th Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteer Infantry, 1861–1865 (New York: Eaton & Mains, 1903), 145. 2. Sgt. Michael S. Schroyer, 147th Pennsylvania, Snyder County Historical Society Bulletin 1 (1939): 370–71, Susan Boardman Collection, MHICB. Schroyer had enlisted in 1862 with his brothers, William and Lewis, now both dead of typhoid fever, in whose memory he wrote in his diary, ‘‘Sleep, Sleep a Soldiers Sleep thy weary march is over.’’ 162 Railroads in the Civil War ‘‘You were undoubtedly surprised to hear of our transfer to the Army of the Cumberland but I can assure you not as much as we were.’’3 A Pennsylvania artillery sergeant wrote a quick letter to his father: [M]arching orders came . . . but when we saw the head of our column going towards the rear we were entirely taken by surprise and could not imagine where we were going. Everyone had an opinion . . . it leaked out we were going to Alexandria to be shipped off but where we could not tell. . . . All the troops around here say we are going to Chattanooga to reinforce Genl Rosecrans. [A]t least the 11th Corps were shipped there & we are to follow as fast as cars are furnished so you need not expect to hear from me in Va again . . . trains are leaving hourly.4 Few regretted leaving Virginia. Henry Henney of the 55th Ohio recalled , ‘‘The boys feel jubilant.’’ Sergeant David Nichol, the Pittsburgh artilleryman, reported, ‘‘This news was hailed with delight by all. [A]ny place but Virginia. . . . [T]his change will put new life in the men & I think in this new field of operation every thing will...