the way in
which, as a last resort, the Confederates were compelled to repair their
railroads by pulling up the rails of one road in order to repair another
that 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 congestion
resulted all along the railroads. Whether this, rather than a failure in
supply, explains the approach of famine in the latter part of the war,
it is today very difficult to determine. In numerous state papers of the
time, the assertion was reiterated that the yield of food was abundant
and that the scarcity of food at many places, including the cities and
the battle fronts, was due to defects in transportation. Certain it is
that the progress of supplies from one point to another was intolerably
slow.

All this want of coordination facilitated speculation. We shall see
hereafter how merciless this speculation became and we shall even hear
of profits on food rising to more than four hundred per cent. However,
the oft-quoted prices of the la