Customer Reviews

Victory Rode the Rails: The Strategic Place of the Railroads in the Civil War

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As the title describes this book provides an extremely well written analysis of the decisive significance the railroad had on both the start and outcome of the American Civil War. While the content is authoritative it reads like a novel and I had difficulty putting it down.

I found the early chapters that discuss how the socio-economic environment, created in large part by the railroad, helped foster the events leading to the outbreak of hostilities particularly insightful. The chapters describing the events that took place around Washington and Baltimore in the early years of the war are incredible. Turner's tight prose describing the political shenanigans and war profiting in the Lincoln cabinet shows that little has changed in Washington in the 125 years

I only wish that the book contained better maps of the regions covered.

This book is a must read for American Civil War historians and rail buffs

The title and subtitle of this well-researched book nearly tells the whole tale. The North entered the War of Secession with huge advantages in logistics, and the new name of warfare in 1861 was engineering. Not only did the North have far more miles of track, along which to transport the enormous armies mobilized with their huge burdens of equipment, but also the Northern rail system was better integrated and flexible. Southern railroads chiefly ran from hinterlands to ports without interlinkage. There were nightmares of incompatible rail gauges and services to the engines. The thesis of this book is that superior railroads provided the margin of Union victory; even if this seems simplistic, the author makes a good and detailed case.

Grant beat Lee, as he had already beaten every commander the Rebels could throw at him in the west, by recognizing the mechanics of the new warfare. Grant's victory at Vicksburg was above all a triumph of military engineering, and Vicksburg was of course the battle that saved the war. Lee made what he could out of the Virginia railroads, particularly in hastening back and forth to Harper's Ferry, but the effort to keep openthe single rail supply line from the south to Richmond consumed more forces than the Secessionists could afford. The defense of Richmond was a huge and telling mistake from the logistical prospect of modern warfare. Lee fought Napoleon's battles; Grant fought Eisenhower's. Ironically, at Antietam and Gettysburg, mediocre generals beat Lee at his own game, leaving nothing for Grant but the bloody mopping up of the Slaveocracy's desperate stubbornness.

The history of the Civil War is intimately tied with the spread, refinement and development of new technologies. From iron-clad ships to rifled artillery to aerial observation, the military effort expended by North and South changed the face of the industry in the United States. Victory Rode the Rails looks at one aspect of this change -- the railroads and how they helped the North win the war.

From the early skirmishes in Baltimore to the final rail movements surrounding the surrender at Appomattox, Turner does a magnificent job of making the railroads of the 1860s come to life. By keeping his focus on the railroads and their role in the various campaigns, Turner highlights a side of the war that is commonly glossed over in histories that focus on battle tactics.

Starting with the differing North/South attitudes towards railroads prior to the war, which left the CSA with a rail network that was ill prepared for the rapid dispersal of troops and supplies that the war required, Turner celebrates the business plans, engineering feats and supply marvels that allowed the Northern commanders to continue their advances even as Southern troops worked to destroy the rails, and vice versa.

I enjoyed this book about the history of the railroad during the civil war. It vividly explains the use of the railroads in battles how they contributed to the winning of the Civil War.