Union Use
As the Union armies pushed further into Confederate territory, they came into ownership of former Confederate railway lines, or what was left of them. Confederate troops generally applied a scorched-earth policy towards railroads when they were in retreat. Union troops would often have to rebuild an entire line from scratch for it to be usable. Due to the vagaries of the war, some lines would be rebuilt 6 or 7 times by differing sides, especially in states like Virginia, where fighting was most intense.
Read more about this topic: Confederate Railroads In The American Civil War
Famous quotes containing the word union:
“So we grew together
Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,
But yet an union in partition,
Two lovely berries moulded on one stem.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“We must choose. Be a child of the past with all its crudities and imperfections, its failures and defeats, or a child of the future, the future of symmetry and ultimate success.”
—Frances E. Willard 1839–1898, U.S. president of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union 1879-1891, author, activist. The Woman’s Magazine, pp. 137-40 (January 1887)