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Southern Railroad Leaders, 1865-1893: Identities and Ideologies*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2012

Maury Klein
Maury Klein
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of History, University of Rhode Island
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Abstract

As the American South recovered from the Civil War, railroads and the businessmen who managed them were important ingredients in the process of economic change. But who were the railroad leaders of the first generation of the “New South” and what were their personal and corporate goals? What were the effects of their actions on the course of southern restoration? Sharply at odds with the usual “carpetbagger” demonology, Professor Klein suggests an alternative explanation and analysis.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 42 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1968 , pp. 288 - 310
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1968

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References

1 By the South, I mean here the following states east of the Mississippi and south of the Ohio river: Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Louisiana. The railroads of these states comprise a homogeneous network that developed about the same time and faced similar problems. In general, the study applies most specifically to the roads north and east of Mobile and does not attempt to treat the complex relationships of Louisiana roads serving territories west of the Mississippi River.

2 Stover, John F., The Railroads of the South 1865–1900 (Chapel Hill, 1955)Google Scholar.

3 Ibid., xiii–xviii.

4 Ibid., 284. See also Ibid., 37–38, 129–34, 153–54, 206–209, 279–82.

5 Poor, Henry V., Manual of Railroads (New York, 1890), 399, 416Google Scholar. Calhoun had to claim Georgia residence because the Central's charter stipulated that 11 of the 13 directors must be Georgians and the board already had two New York men.

6 Poor, , Manual of the Railroads of the United States (New York, 1882), 385, 393Google Scholar.

7 Poor, , Manual of Railroads (New York, 1888), 639, 646Google Scholar.

8 Poor, , Manual of Railroads (New York, 1889), 619, 687Google Scholar.

9 A curious example of hidden control arose in 1880 when Moses Taylor, the New York merchant and leading stockholder in the C. G., obtained control of a majority of shares in the Western & Atlantic Railroad lease. Since Taylor could not legally hold the majority he asked the C. G. to take it, but the company could not handle it either. For a time Taylor controlled the road but could not publicly exercise that control. See Edward C. Anderson Diary, January 5, 1880, Anderson Papers (Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina).

10 For this election, see the Edward Porter Alexander Papers (Southern Historical Collection), and the Savannah Morning News and Evening Press, July 1882–January 1883 and July 1886–January 1887. Complete proxy lists for the 1883 election can be found in the William G. Raoul Letterbooks, Raoul papers (Emory University Library), II.

11 The testimony given by various southern railroad presidents in “Southern Railroads,” House Reports, 40 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 3, I, 1–130, makes this pattern of local control abundantly clear. For more specific examples of stock distribution, see the stockholder lists in the annual reports of the C. G. 1869–81 and the W. & W. in 1867–68. See also the list of R. & D. stockholders for 1869 in the Virginia State Library, Richmond. The L. & N. provides an example of a large block of stock being owned by the city of Louisville. See Commercial and Financial Chronicle, XXIX (July 12, 1879), 41Google Scholar. For the Georgia Railroad see Railway World, XXIV (May 22, 1880), 482Google Scholar.

12 See the figures in Poor, , Manual of the Railroads of the United States (New York, 1874), xxviii–xxixGoogle Scholar.

13 There would seem to be evidence that the two groups analyzed here may be considered as “coevals” as described by Redlich, Fritz in his History of American Business headers (Ann Arbor, 1940), I, 23–30Google Scholar. Certainly the analysis given here suggests that the members of each group perceived their problems and responded to them in quite similar fashion. In this vein it is interesting to note that the youngest of the group, Robinson, proved the most adaptable and enduring in his role as president.

14 See the summaries in Fishlow, Albert, American Railroads and the Transformation of the Ante-bellum Economy (Cambridge, 1965), 8–9, 269–88Google Scholar, and Taylor, George R. and Neu, Irene D., The American Railway Network 1861–1890 (Cambridge, 1956), 3–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Excellent detailed accounts of the origins and development of several major southern roads can be found in Phillips, U. B., A History of Transportation in the Eastern Cotton Belt to 1860 (New York, 1913)Google Scholar.

15 To cite some examples: King was deeply involved in cotton manufacturing in Augusta; H. D. Newcomb was a Louisville merchant; and Cole, Stevenson, and Wilson all had extensive mining and real estate interests in Tennessee.

16 Proceedings of the Stockholders of the Raleigh & Gaston Railroad Company at their 21st Annual Meeting (Raleigh, 1871), 12Google Scholar. Similar examples abound in the reports of other roads, and the language used suggests the bitterness of the contest for business.

17 This continuity of management is made clear by a survey of boards of directors for the period 1855–70 and by the testimony given in “Southern Railroads,” House Reports, 40 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 3, I, passim.

18 For more precise definition of this term see Johnson, Arthur M. and Supple, Barry E., Boston Capitalists and Western Railroads (Cambridge, 1967), 8–10, 181–91, 333–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 For the roads included in this study, the testimony in “Southern Railroads” lists the following approximate proportions of state ownership: R. & D. 60 per cent; S. & R. 60 per cent; A. M. & O. 60 per cent; A. & G. 33 per cent; E. T. & G. (half the consolidated E. T. V. & G.) 33 per cent. According to Dozier, Howard D., A History of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad (Cambridge, 1920), 57–59Google Scholar, the state owned 40 per cent of the W. & W.'s stock. The city of Louisville and counties along the right of way held about 26 per cent of the L. & N.'s stock. See Chronicle, XXIX (July 12, 1879), 41Google Scholar.

20 See the Annual Reports of the President and Directors, and the Chief Engineer and Superintendent of the Wilmington & Weldon Railroad Company (Wilmington, 1868), 6–7Google Scholar.

21 25th Annual Report of the Richmond & Danville Railroad Company (Richmond, 1872), 10–11Google Scholar.

22 The Second Annual Report of the Officers to the Stockholders of the East Tenn., Va. & Geo. R. R. Co. (Knoxville, 1871), 9Google Scholar.

23 Wilmington & Weldon Report, 5.

24 Use of the terms “natural law” and “nature” occurs frequently in annual reports. See for example 19th Annual Report of the President and Directors to the Stockholders of the Seaboard & Roanoke Railroad Company (Norfolk, 1867), 14–15Google Scholar; The First Annual Report of the Officers to the Stockholders of the East Tenn., Va. & Geo. R. R. Co. (Knoxville, 1870), 14–15Google Scholar; 26th Annual Report of the Richmond & Danville Railroad Company (Richmond, 1873), 123, 126Google Scholar.

25 Bridgers, Buford, Guthrie, King, Mahone, Screven, and Standiford all had direct political experience, and of course every road counted influential political figures among its directors, stockholders, and general counsel. An interesting report analyzing the attitude of each member of the Georgia senate toward the C. G. can be found in the W. W. Gordon Papers (Southern Historical Collection). For specific examples of political activity by Buford, Mahone, and Robinson see Blake, Nelson M., William Mahone of Virginia (Richmond, 1935), chaps. 4–5Google Scholar.

26 1st Annual Report of the President and Directors of the Atlantic, Mississippi & Ohio Railroad Company (Lynchburg, 1872), 12Google Scholar.

27 The standard work on restoration is Fish, Carl R., “The Restoration of the Southern Railroads,” University of Wisconsin Studies in the Social Sciences and History (Madison, 1919)Google Scholar, No. 2. A good insight into the scope and nature of the problems involved can be gained by reading the annual reports of individual companies. Sizeable collections of these can be found in Baker Library, Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration and at the Bureau of Railroad Economics, Washington, D.C. To cite one example, Wadley estimated the cost of restoring the C. G. at around $2,000,000. See “Southern Railroads,” I, 40.

28 A conspicuous exception to the pattern of restoration is the L. & N. Since it suffered no appreciable war damage and possessed strong, aggressive management, it remained a chronological step ahead of the other roads in its development. The pattern of its leadership, however, closely parallels the other roads.

29 Supplemental Report of the President and Directors of the Central Railroad and Banking Company of Georgia (Savannah, 1866), 288–89Google Scholar, and 38th Report of the President and Directors of the Central Railroad and Banking Company of Georgia (Savannah, 1874), 95, 99, 103Google Scholar.

30 Hall, C. C. (ed.), Baltimore: Its History and People (3 vols., New York, 1912), III, 165–69Google Scholar; New York Times, March 31, 1901.

31 Chronicle, XIV (March 23, 1872), 386Google Scholar and XXIII (December 9, 1876), 576; Fair-fax Harrison, , A History of the Legal Development of the Southern Railway Company (Washington, 1901), 93–94Google Scholar.

32 A list of S. R. S. C. stockholders in 1872 can be found in Proceedings of the Stockholders Convention in the Memphis & Charleston Railroad Company, January 17–19, 1872 (Memphis, 1872), 6Google Scholar. H. B. Plant was listed as a resident of Georgia in the stockholder's list and had in fact lived in the South for some time, but he was a native of Connecticut. For details of the Pennsylvania's involvement see Burgess, George H. and Kennedy, Miles C., Centennial History of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company (Philadelphia, 1949), 279–81Google Scholar.

33 The B. & O. had moved south by acquiring control of the Orange, Alexandria & Manassas Railroad. See Harrison, Southern Railway Company, 471.

34 Blake, Mahone, chaps. 4–5.

35 East Tenn., Va. & Geo. Report 1870.

36 27th Annual Report of the Richmond & Danville Railroad Company (Richmond, 1874), 227Google Scholar.

37 The most clearly articulated expression of this attitude can be found in the statements by Presidents R. R. Cuyler and Wadley opposing the construction of a line from Macon to Brunswick. See the C. G. annual reports for 1856–60, 1866, 1869, and 1872. The acute lack of interconnections and gauge integration described in Taylor and Neu, American Railway Network, 41–48, illustrates well the desire to localize traffic at the terminal cities.

38 Examples of such laments are plentiful. See Seaboard & Roanoke Report 1867, 17; Wilmington & Weldon Report 1868, 19; Annual Report of the President and Directors of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad Company (Louisville, 1867), 10–11Google Scholar. For a statement on the L. & N.'s growing awareness of the importance of through traffic around 1871 see Armes, Ethel, The Story of Coal and Iron in Alabama (Birmingham, 1910), 145–46Google Scholar.

39 Nearly any southern railroad report will illustrate this point. See The Fourth Annual Report of the Officers to the Stockholders of the East Tenn., Va. & Geo. R. R. Co. (Knoxville, 1873), 7–8Google Scholar; 37th Report of the President and Directors of the Central Railroad and Banking Company of Georgia (Savannah, 1872), 7–8Google Scholar; Chronicle, XXII (May 13, 1876), 469Google Scholar.

40 For details of expansion policies see the reports of the various companies for the period 1868–78.

41 Railroad Gazette, XVI (October 17, 1884), 757Google Scholar.

42 Annual Report of the President and Directors of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad Company (Louisville, 1880), 21–22Google Scholar.

43 Henry Plant constitutes a basic exception to much of the following description. A native of Connecticut, he moved south in 1853 and went into the express business. He remained during the war, formed the Southern Express Company and gradually drifted into railroads. Enchanted with the commercial possibilities of Florida, he devoted much of his energy to developing that state. Adapting quickly to the changing economic environment, he combined with other financiers to form the Plant Investment Company, a holding company in southern railroads, in 1882.

44 Interesting and suggestive sketches of several of these men can be found in Clews, Henry, Twenty-Eight Years in Wall Street (New York, 1888)Google Scholar, chap. 50.

45 These figures are taken from Poor, Manual of Railroads (New York, 1893), xvGoogle Scholar.

46 These figures are drawn from Poor, Manual of the Railroads of the United States (New York, 1878), 452–53, 473–74Google Scholar, Manual of the Railroads of the United States (New York, 1883), 536Google Scholar and Manual of Railroads (New York, 1884), 491Google Scholar.

47 For a good contemporary description of these consolidations see Railroad Gazette, XIII (October 21, 1881), 586–87Google Scholar.

48 The Morgan reorganization plan for the Richmond Terminal indicated clearly how worn down three major systems, the R. & D., E. T. V. & G. and C. G., had become by 1893. Copies of the plan can be found in Baker Library and the Bureau of Railroad Economics.

49 The most satisfactory account of the Terminal is Daggett, Stuart, Railroad Reorganization (Cambridge, 1908)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, chap. 5.

50 W. W. Gordon to John H. Inman, October 28, 1889, Gordon Papers (Southern Historical Collection).

51 For definition of this term see Kimenta, Jan and Williamson, Jeffrey, “Determinants of Investment Behavior: United States Railroads 1872–1941,” Review of Economics and Statistics, XLVIII (May, 1966), 172–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar.