How many miles of railroad tracks did the South have in 1850?

The 1850s had seen enormous growth in the railroad industry so that by 1861, 22,000 miles of track had been laid in the Northern states and 9,500 miles in the South. The great rail centers in the South were Chattanooga, Atlanta, and most important, Richmond. Very little track had yet been laid west of the Mississippi.



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By 1850, 9,021 miles (14,500 km) of railroad had been constructed in the northeast, with some lines laid towards the west. The federal government wanted to establish further railroads across the west, connecting the seaports of the Atlantic with the middle west and the Pacific seaboard.

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Great Britain, a small island, had well over 60 percent of railroads in Europe in 1840, but a much smaller percentage, even though its absolute amount of track increased tenfold, by 1900.

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The 1850s had seen enormous growth in the railroad industry so that by 1861, 22,000 miles of track had been laid in the Northern states and 9,500 miles in the South. The great rail centers in the South were Chattanooga, Atlanta, and most important, Richmond. Very little track had yet been laid west of the Mississippi.

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Soon joining the B & O as operating lines were the Mohawk and Hudson, opened in September 1830, the Saratoga, opened in July 1832, and the South Carolina Canal and Rail Road Company, whose 136 miles of track, completed to Hamburg, constituted, in 1833, the longest steam railroad in the world.

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The immensity of the American rail system can be illustrated by one fact. The Civil War was fought between two sides that controlled the largest and third largest railroad system in the world. The largest was the Union at 21,000, miles followed by Britain at 10,000 miles and third was the Confederacy at 9,000 miles.

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