through the building and loaded into cars on the opposite side. The levee was of sufficient length to allow at least four or five boats to unload at the same time, and the side tracks were so arranged that a whole train of cars could be loaded at once, and as soon as loaded could be moved away and another train run right alongside the house. This plan would undoubtedly have enabled us to handle to a large amount of freight with great rapidity and ease, but we had not the opportunity of bringing it to a practical test, for just as everything was about completed Hood's invasion of Tennessee took place and Johnsonville was evacuated by our troops, and during their absence the freight- house was burned, as is supposed, by rebel sympathizers in the neighborhood. However, the engine and all the most valuable parts of the machinery were saved by being taken to Nashville.

All could have been saved if we had sufficient transportation for it. Although the road was opened through to Johnsonville after Hood's defeat at Nashville, but little work was done in rebuilding the houses and platforms at that point. Grading off the levee involved considerable work; about 30,000 cubic yards of earth had to be moved. It was designed to pave it, or put on a covering of broken stone, but owing to the delay in furnishing gun-boat protection to our boats, which were to bring stone down the river for this purpose, the work was but partially carried out. A row of piles were to have been driven at the edge of the water to protect the levee and prevent its washing away at time of floods, but the pile driver for this purpose never reached Johnsonville. It is proper for me to state here that the work on the buildings and levee at Johnsonville was much delayed by the confusion and embarrassment caused by the conflict of authority incident to a divided control of the work. In the first place, I was ordered to erect these buildings; then Colonel Donaldson, senior and supervising quartermaster Department of the Cumberland, assumed the charge of them and appointed a quartermaster to superintend their erection. But under his management the work progressed, so slowly that finally the quartermaster's department was relieved, and again I was ordered to complete it. Had I been allowed to go on in the first place and carry out my plans, the works would all have been completed and in use three months before the evacuation of the place, instead of being not quite completed at that time. The following is a statement of the work done on this road:

Graduation.

The amount of grading was very considerable, but I am unable to give the number of cubic yards moved, because when we took charge of this road I had no time to measure it, and I had no assistance to do it for me. By the time I procured the requisite assistance much of the work had been done. Thorough cuts of as much as forty and fifty feet in depth and 800 feet in length were taken out and high embankments made. Even where the grading had been done previously much labor was required to dress up the embankments and clean out the cuts.

Superstructure.

The total length of track laid was:

Miles.

Main line.....................................46 1/2

Sidings....................................... 4 1/2

Tota..........50 3/4

60 R R-SERIES III, VOL V