the necessities of war rendered indispensable.

The railway system, if such it can be called, was one of the
weaknesses of the Confederacy. Before the war the South had not
felt the need of elaborate interior communication, for its
commerce in the main went seaward, and thence to New England or
to Europe. Hitherto the railway lines had seen no reason for
merging their local character in extensive combinations. Owners
of short lines were inclined by tradition to resist even the
imperative necessities of war and their stubborn conservatism was
frequently encouraged by the shortsighted parochialism of the
towns. The same pitiful narrowness that led the peasant farmer to
threaten rebellion against the tax in kind led his counterpart in
the towns to oppose the War Department in its efforts to
establish through railroad lines because they threatened to
impair local business interests. A striking instance of this
disinclination towards cooperation is the action of Petersburg.
Two railroads terminated at this point but did not connect, and
it was an ardent desire of the military authorities to link the
two and convert them into one. The town, however, unable to see
beyond its boundaries and resolute in its determination to save
its transfer business, successfully obstructed the needs of the
army.*

* See an article on "The Confederate Government and the
Railroads" in the "American Historical Review," July, 1917, by
Charles W. Ramsdell.


As a result of this lack of efficient organization an immense