Railroads became commercially viable in the United States in the 1840s. The building of railroads greatly accelerated during the next decade as they provided the large-scale movement of goods necessary for the Industrial Revolution. By the start of the American Civil War, the American rail system was the largest in the world, with 30,000 miles of track. At the beginning of the war, there were 9,000 miles of track in the South as compared to the 21,000 miles in the North. The South had one-third of the freight cars, one-fifth of the locomotives, one-tenth of the telegraph stations, and one-twenty-fourth of locomotive production of the North. Judging the relative strength of the Northern and Southern rail systems by these numbers alone, however, can be misleading. The Confederacy’s white population of 5.5 million was only 22 percent of the Union’s 18.5 million. The South also compared favorably in the number of people living within fifteen miles, or a day’s journey, of a railroad
Allen, William (1768–1831) – Encyclopedia Virginia encyclopediavirginia.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from encyclopediavirginia.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
A murky legacy: Confederate generals who helped Black locals
LISA VERNON SPARKS, The Virginian-Pilot
March 7, 2021
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RICHMOND, Va. (AP) Not much is written in Virginia’s history books about William Mahone, a general who fought with the Confederate states during the Civil War.
He led an attack against the Union Army in 1864 during the Battle of the Crater. Thousands of troops died, and hundreds of Black soldiers were massacred.
But there is another story about Mahone that is rarely told, historians say.
Post-Civil War, Mahone entered politics and led the Readjuster Party in Virginia. The group advocated for readjusting Virginia’s debt and built a biracial coalition on the might of Black voters following the Reconstruction. In 1879, the party controlled the legislature during a time when many Blacks held state office. Mahone gained a seat in the U.S. Senate. The party’s mission was to reduce Virginia’s bulging debt and reestablish public education, r
Peter Vivian Daniel was born on April 17, 1818, in Henrico County at the country farm of his parents, Peter V. Daniel, then a member of the Council of State and later an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, and his first wife, Lucy Randolph Daniel. His maternal grandfather was Edmund Randolph, a former governor and attorney general of the United States. While Daniel was growing up, his cousin Raleigh Travers Daniel, who became a member of the Council of State and attorney general of Virginia, lived in the Daniel household and studied law with Daniel’s father.