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Government Engineering Aid to Railroads Before the Civil War1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

Forest G. Hill
Forest G. Hill
Affiliation:
University of California
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Extract

American historians have commonly given attention to the manner in which the Federal Government stimulated the early growth of railroads by the remission of tariff duties on railway iron and particularly by land grants after 1850. They have said little about government promotion of railroads before the Civil War through the provision of engineering services. But this engineering aid was a major element in the initial progress of railroading and is an important aspect of the history of government economic policy toward transportation and science. This government aid is here discussed in terms of (1) the technical assistance given to railroads directly by the Army engineers and (2) the indirect stimulus given to railroads by government promotion of engineering science.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 11 , Issue 3 , Summer 1951 , pp. 235 - 246
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1951

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References

2 “Report on Roads and Canals,” American State Papers, Miscellaneous, I, 724–921. For an analysis of the Gallatin plan, see Goodrich, Carter, “National Planning of Internal Improvements,” Political Science Quarterly, LXIII (March 1948), 16–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 “Report on Roads and Canals,” The Works of John C. Calhoun, ed. Cralle, Richard E. (New York, 1856), V, 40–54Google Scholar.

4 “Report of the Committee on Roads and Canals on the Subject of Internal Improvements,” January 2, 1822, H. Rept. 8, 17th Cong., 1st sess., 1–5; Report on “Roads and Canals” of House Committee on Roads and Canals, April 26, 1822, American State Papers, Miscellaneous, II, 934–37.

5 Annual Message, December 2, 1823, The Writings of James Monroe, ed. Hamilton, Stanislaus M. (New York, 1902), VI, 337Google Scholar.

6 Acts of the Eighteenth Congress, 35. In this paper all Army line officers and civilian engineers employed by the Engineer Department under authority of the General Survey Act or other legislation affecting internal improvements are included in the term “Army engineers.”

7 Earlier experiments with railways had envisaged the use of steam carriages or horse-drawn vehicles on public roads equipped with rails. The first railed highways were conceived as turnpikes or public roads, for the use of which the individual owners of vehicles must pay prescribed tolls. Applying the principles used for turnpikes, state legislatures initially granted charters to railroad companies enabling them to build roads and charge tolls to shippers using proper vehicles. Cf. Dunbar, Seymour, A History of Travel in America (4 vols.; Indianapolis, 1915), III, 931–33Google Scholar, and MacGill, Caroline E. and Meyer, Balthasar H., History of Transportation in the United States Before 1860 (Washington, 1917), 314–15Google Scholar.

8 Cf. Haney, Lewis H., A Congressional History of Railways in the United States (2 vols.; Madison: State Printer, 1908), I, 109–13, 116Google Scholar.

9 Letter of Secretary of War James Barbour to the sponsors of these projects, May 9, 1826, Engineer Department, Miscellaneous Letters Sent, III, 195–96. This letter and all letters and reports of the Engineer Department and its component agencies later referred to in this paper are (unless otherwise indicated) to be found among the manuscript records of the Engineer Department in the War Records Division of the National Archives.

10 Barbour to Peter Little, May 2, 1827, ibid., IV, 149–50.

11 Cf. Kirkland, Edward C., Men, Cities, and Transportation (2 vols.; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1948), I, 121Google Scholar. For further discussion of the work of Army engineers with this railroad, see Cullum, George W., Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point (3d ed.; Boston, 1891), IGoogle Scholar; Hungerford, Edward, The Story of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, 1827–1927 (New York, 1928)Google Scholar; Long, Stephen H. and McNeill, William G., Narrative of the Proceedings of the Board of Engineers of the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road Company (Baltimore, 1830)Google Scholar; and Reizenstein, Milton, The Economic History of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, 1827–1853 (The Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science, Series XV, Nos. 7 and 8; Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1897)Google Scholar.

12 These railroad surveys are discussed in the correspondence of the Engineer Department, its printed Annual Reports, and certain of its special reports, some of which were printed as Congressional documents. These and other sources are given in chap. iv of my dissertation, referred to in n. 1.

13 These figures for railroads annually receiving government engineering aid are approximate and may be too low as a result of the ubiquitous practice of allowing Army officers to work for railroads while on furlough, on an off-duty basis, etc. The sources for these data (see n. 12) are scattered, incomplete, and even contradictory.

14 Colonel John J. Abert to Secretary of War ad interim B. F. Butler, January 24, 1837, Topographical Bureau, Letters Issued, 240–52.

15 Cf. Annual Reports of the Secretary of War, December 3, 1836, American State Papers, Military Affairs, VI, 810, and December 2, 1837, ibid., VII, 573–74; Congressional Globe, VI, 133; Acts of the Twenty-fifth Congress, 105; and Haney, I, 113–18.

16 In 1847, for instance, Colonel Long was permitted to give his off-duty services to a railroad in Illinois, Topographical Bureau, Letters Issued, X, 104–5.

17 Abert to Francis Markoe, May 18, 1849, H. Rept 145, 30th Cong., 2d sess., 641–49; Abert to John A. Rockwell, June 30, 1849, ibid., 639–41.

18 Cf. Abert to Secretary of War, April 11, 1851, Topographical Bureau, Letters Issued to Secretary of War, V, 57–59.

19 It is not my intention to discuss the Pacific Railroad Surveys in any detail since they have received disproportionately greater attention than earlier government engineering aid to railroads. For a useful discussion of these surveys and their background, see Robert R. Russel, Improvement of Communication with the Pacific Coast as an Issue in American Politics, 1783–1864 (Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 1948).

20 Concerning the role of West Point as an early school of engineering, see Boynton, Edward C., History of West Point … (2d ed.; New York, 1871)Google Scholar; Centennial of the United States Military Academy (Washington, 1904)Google Scholar; and Dupuy, R. Ernest, Where They Have Trod: The West Point Tradition in American Life (New York, 1940)Google Scholar. Rensselaer-Polytechnic Institute was started in 1824, but for several years it did not emphasize engineering. or give instruction exceeding one year in length. Other technical and engineering schools did not come into existence until after 1845, and they were not very numerous or influential until after the Civil War. During the first three decades of railroading West Point was the country's leading, school of engineering.

21 Report of Board of Visitors, June 1848, H. Ex. Doc. L, 30th Cong., 2d sess., 295.

22 Cullum (1868 edition), I, 7.

23 The Military Academy's Board of Visitors declared in 1831 that “The science of civil engineering, as taught at this academy, the board regard as a branch of education fundamentally important. At a time when the energies of a discerning and patriotic public spirit are everywhere directed to the purposes of practical improvement; when in every portion of this widespread confederacy we are daily furnished with the manifestations of a desire by means of canals and railroads to connect the remotest portions of the Union, and through their agency to develop the resources and improve the conditions of our country, the value of the knowledge imparted in this course cannot be overrated.”—Report of Board of Visitors, June 21, 1831, American State Papers, Military Affairs, IV, 737.

24 For further description of the railroad careers of West Point graduates, see Allan, Carlisle, “George W. Whistler, Military Engineer,” The Military Engineer, XXIX (May–June 1937), 177–80Google Scholar; Centennial …, I, 484, 838–39, 843–48, 878–80; Cullum; Dupuy, 378–79, 382–84; Kirkland, I, 121–22, 131; Struik, Dirk J., Yankee Science in the Maying (Boston, 1948), 244–47Google Scholar; and Vose, George L., A Sketch of the Life and Works of George W. Whistler, Civil Engineer (Boston, 1887)Google Scholar.