Confederate Method of Destroying Rail Roads at McCloud Mill, Virginia

Andrew Joseph Russell|Mathew B. Brady

1863 · Albumen silver print from glass negative · Photographs

Russell made several photographs of the discovery by the Union army of the simple but effective method developed by the Confederates to destroy Union railroad track. Using the ties as fuel, the soldiers stacked the iron rails in X formations and burned them until they could be twisted and made unusable. Federal engineers employed similar tactics to destroy Southern railroads, and this photograph has been published, inaccurately, as “Sherman’s Neckties.” The title refers to Union General William Tecumseh Sherman, who during the Atlanta Campaign on July 18, 1864, gave the following explicit order to his corps: “Officers should be instructed that bars simply bent may be used again, but if when red hot they are twisted out of line they cannot be used again. Pile the ties into shape for a bonfire, put the rails across and when red hot in the middle, let a man at each end twist the bar so that its surface becomes spiral.”

Artist

Andrew Joseph Russell|Mathew B. Brady

Date

1863

Medium

Albumen silver print from glass negative

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1933