Alabama Railroads (review)

BOOK REVIEWS83 sort found as another president rushed headlong towards impeachment. And no, we don't know how much, if anything, Andy sent to Johnny Jack. James E. Sefton California State University, Northridge Alabama Railroads. By Wayne Cline. (Tuscaloosa: The University ofAlabama Press, 1997. Pp. 328. $39-95·) Alabama, blessed with thousands of miles of navigable rivers and streams, was slow in developing railroads. The initial location of railroads in the state was determined by where cotton was grown and where railroads needed to augment the rivers in getting it to market. Thus, the first railroad in the state was situated to provide a route around the shoals in the Tennessee River in the northwestern corner of the state, and other antebellum railroads were placed to open up new cotton markets. If ever a state's history was shaped by its railroad development (or its lack of), Alabama's was. Yet despite that fact, and that Alabama citizens have long held a fascination for the iron horse, no chronicle of the state's railroads appeared until this study. Wayne Cline's Alabama Railroads illustrates why for the Confederacy the significant gaps in the state's railroad lines proved disastrous. Although the unfinished line from Pollard to Tensaw was completed within the first year of war, there was no Tensaw to Mobile connection until after 1865. With herculean efforts a spur line was built from theAlabama & Mississippi Rivers Railroad to connect the Confederate industrial complex at Selma with the iron ore regions and iron furnaces of the mineral district; but the failure to bridge the Tombigbee River and connect Selma with Meridian, Mississippi, prevented the rapid flow of troops and supplies to the west. The railroad route between Chattanooga, Tennessee, through the hill country and the mineral district ofAlabama to Meridian , Mississippi, would have helped the Confederate cause, but although some of the survey was graded, the railroad remained only a dream until the 1870s. The most significant development of railroads in Alabama came in the sixty years following the war, when railroads opened up the mineral district and made possible the Great Iron Boom. The state's New South cities, like Birmingham, Anniston, and Gadsden, appeared at railroad junctions. The dominate railroad in the state was the Louisville and Nashville, which ran the length of Alabama connecting Nashville with Birmingham, Montgomery, and the Gulf port at Mobile, but the Central of Georgia and the Southern Railway System were also significant. The book is an oversized volume with fine maps and dozens of photographs and illustrations. The maps are especially valuable in determining where certain lines were in operation during a given time period, and the collection of photographs of trains and stations, such as Mobile's elegant Grand and 84CIVIL WAR HISTORY Birmingham's Terminal stations, documents an era only older citizens can remember . Although the book is footnoted, it falls woefully short of citing primary materials, and the secondary sources include some specious works, particularly Marie Bankhead Owens's 1949 children's school history. But on the whole it is a finely done work and will be enjoyed by railroad enthusiasts and scholars alike. Leah Rawls Atkins Auburn, Alabama The Baraboo Guards: A Novel ofthe American Civil War. By John K. Driscoll. (Madison: Prairie Oak Press, 1995. Pp. 320. $16.95.) The Iron Brigade was one of the hardest-fighting and most respected infantry formations in the Army of the Potomac, distinguishing itself in savage actions at Brawner Farm, South Mountain, Antietam, and Gettysburg. The brigade's members took almost a perverse pride in being Westerners in a predominantly Eastern army. In combat, these rugged sons of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Indiana exhibited an unyielding tenacity that prompted some observers to question whether such men could be composed of ordinary flesh and blood. But their valor carried a terrible price. The Iron Brigade suffered a higher percentage of its troops killed and mortally wounded than any other brigade in the Union army. Its sad and heroic story is the stuff ofwhich legends—and good novels— should be made. The Baraboo Guards is John K. Driscoll's moving account of a fictional company in the Iron Brigade's oldest regiment, the...