Diary of Orrin Brown—Oct 18, 1864

US Railroad map, 1861

Diary of Orrin Brown, on a train south of Louisville, Kentucky.

Tuesday–Oct. 18th

It is most a beautifull day, clear and warm but we had a verry hard frost last night, we arrived at Jeffersonville about 7AM, marched down to the river, got aboard the ferry boat, Isaac Bowman crossed over to Louisville were marched about 1/2mile and put into an old brick building and then down to breakfast. I left my knife on the table and did not get it again, the U. S. C. Commition presented each one of us with a prayer and hymn book and some tracts, I wrote a letter home. We left Louisville about 3PM for Nashville in a second class car without windows. Here I saw the first earthwork fortifycations I also saw Old Rebbel fortifycations all along the road made by diging a trench and setting logs about 16 ft. long on end and then throwing throwing the dirt up around the outside. Just before dark we passed throught a tunnel a mile long and as dark as tar, when it got so dark we could not see any more we hung our blankets up to the windows built a fire in a small coal stove and prepaired to spend the night as best we could.

The L&N Don’t Run Here Anymore

Railroads provided a decisive advantage to the Union cause in the Civil War.  The Civil War Trust notes that by 1861, 22,000 miles of track had been laid in the Northern states and 9,500 miles in the South.  The railroads in the Confederacy were also fragmented, with few interconnects and no standard gauge.  There was also little manufacturing capacity in the South to replace equipment and rail.

The Louisville and Nashville (L&N) Railroad traded with both sides early in the war, north and south, but by mid-1862 was mostly doing business with the Union after the fall of Nashville and occupation by future President Andrew Johnson. The line was vital to Union supply lines into the Deep South, leading to both profiteering by the company and predation by regular and guerrilla forces up and down the rail.

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1 Response to Diary of Orrin Brown—Oct 18, 1864

  1. Pingback: The L&N Don't Stop Here Any More -JC Shepard(dot)com

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