The Arkansas in the Civil War Message Board

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I think the problem here about whether the railroad was complete or not is a problem of definitions of what is meant by the term Complete.

Actually the Little Rock to Memphis railroad WAS NOT Completed during the War. The section between the White and the Cache Rivers were NOT completed until after the War. Early in the War 1861 neither was the section between Little Rock and Deval's Bluff. But, was finished soon after Arkansas seceded. The whole point of building a railroad between Little Rock and Devals Bluff was because the White River was deep enough most of the year to support heavy loaded steamers where as the Lower Arkansas River was often too shallow.

The point of building this railroad from Little Rock to Memphis for the builders was to make money by shipping goods by rail. The portion of the railroad that they could make money on the quickest to help cover the cost of building the railroad was the section from Devals Bluff to Little Rock.

There are many references to the transportation of heavy equipment and rail traffic between Deval's Bluff and Little Rock actually Argenta during the War. Why would you place two extremely heavy naval artillery guns on railroad flatcar, if the Railroad ran nowhere? Where they going to push these railcar down the tracks with Mules or by hand because there was no engines to pull the train?

The same for the heavy guns taken from the Ponchartrain and moved to Devals Bluff for Fort Hindman there in 1862. And the same with the two 32 pound rifled guns then ship by steamer down the White River to St Charles that sank the USS Mound City.

While some may argue that these weapons may have been shipped to Devals' Bluff by steamer down the Arkansas and then up the White Rivers, this would have been extremely dangerous after Van Dorn abandoned Arkansas by April 15th 1862, and Gen. Samuel Curtis Cavalry roaming freely east of the White River. The safe way to have transported these valuable weapons would have been by the most direct route where they could be protected by what little forces the Confederates had available after Van Dorn left.

Could these guns have been transported overland by wagon and mule? Yes, it would have been possible. But the weight of those type of guns would have been difficult to have transported over the roads of Arkansas in 1862, and not the preferred method if some other way was available.

There is strong evidence that the portion of the Little Rock to Memphis Railroad between Little Rock and Deval's Bluff was operational by the late spring of 1862. At least by May 1862.

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Interesting thread
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