THE OPERATIONS IN VIRGINIA—APPENDIX. 
251 
Destroying Railways. —The destruction of railway communica¬ 
tion between the confederate army at Richmond and the Gulf States, 
had been a very important part of Sherman’s purpose, and he spared no 
pains to do this thoroughly. A battalion of mechanics was selected 
and furnished with tools for ripping the rails from the cross-ties, and 
twisting them when heated, and these we kept constantly at work ; but 
the infantry on the march became expert in methods of their own, and 
the cavalry also joined in the work, though the almost constant skirmish¬ 
ing on the flanks and rear of the army usually kept the mounted troops 
otherwise employed. A division of infantry would be extended along 
the railway line about the length of its proper front. The men, 
stacking arms, would cluster along one side of the track, and at the word 
of command, lifting together, would raise the line of rail with the ties 
as high as their shoulders, than at another command, they would let the 
whole drop, stepping back out of the way as it fell. The heavy fall 
would shake loose many of the spikes and chairs, and seizing the 
loosened rails, the men using them as levers, would quickly pry off the 
rest. The cross-ties would now be piled up like cob-houses, and with 
these and other fuel a brisk fire would be made ; the rails were piled 
upon the fire, and in half-an-hour would be red hot in the middle. 
Seizing the rail now by the two ends, the soldiers would twist it about 
a tree, or interlace and twine the whole pile together in great iron knots, 
making them useless for anything but old iron, and most unmanageable 
and troublesome, even to convey away to a mill. In this way it was 
not difficult for a corps marching along the railway to destroy, in a day, 
ten or fifteen miles of track most completely, and Sherman himself 
gave close watch to the work to see that it was not slighted. Then all 
machine shops, stations, bridges, and culverts were destroyed, and the 
masonry blown up. 
The extent of line destroyed was enormous. From the Etowah river, 
through Atlanta, southward to Lovejoy’s, for a hundred miles nothing 
was left of the road. From Fairburn, through Atlanta eastward to 
Madison and the Oconee River, another hundred miles the destruction 
was equally complete. From Gordon, south-eastwardly, the ruin of the 
Central road was continued to the very suburbs of Savannah, a hundred 
and sixty miles. Then there were serious breaks in the branch road 
from Gordon northward through Milledgeville, and in that connecting 
Augusta and Millen. So great a destruction would have been a long and 
serious interruption, even at the North, but the blockade of Southern 
ports, and the small facilities for manufacture in the Confederate States 
made the damage practically irreparable. The lines which were wrecked 
were then the only ones which connected the Gulf States with the 
Carolinas, and even if Sherman had not marched northward from 
Savannah, the resources of the confederacy would have been seriously 
crippled. The forage of the country was also destroyed throughout a 
belt fifty or sixty miles in width.—“ The March to the Sea ,” Jacob 
D. Cox , LL.D ., ch. u., p. 35. 
Making War support War. —But Grant had learned that an army 
could live without a base ; and now, with a larger army, and for a 
longer period, and amid ten-fold greater dangers, he put the principle 
to the test. No army in modern times had ever made a similar attempt. 
