OFFICE DIRECTOR AND GENERAL MANAGE MILITARY RAILROADS UNITED STATES,

Washington, D. C., May 26, 1866.

Bvt. Major General M. C. MEIGS,

Quartermaster-General U. S. Army, Washington, D. C.:

GENERAL: I have the honor to submit the following report upon the military railroads of the United States under my charge during the war:

On the 11th day of February, 1862, I received the following order:

WAR DEPARTMENT,

Washington City, D. C., February 11, 1862.

Ordered, That D. C. McCallum be, and he is hereby, appointed military director and superintendent of railroads in the United States, with authority to enter upon, taken possession of, hold, and use all railroads, engines, cars, locomotives, equipments, appendages, and appurtenances that may be required for the transport of troops, arms, ammunition, and military supplies of the United States and to do and perform all acts and things that may be necessary and proper to be done for the safe and speedy transport aforesaid.

By order of the President, Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States:

EDWIN M. STANTON,

Secretary of War.

Upon assuming the duties indicated by the above order I found only one railroad in possession of the Government - that from Washington to Alexandria, seven miles long, and in charge of Captain R. F. Morley, acting assistant quartermaster.

Under an order from the War Department, dated January 10, 1862, that track had been relaid with new T-rails, the entire road bed repaired, and a track laid across Long Bridge over the Potomac River. Previously all passengers and freight had been transferred across the bridge by horse power. In Alexandria the tracks had been laid through the city to form a junction with the Orange and Alexandria Railroad. The road was used regularly and continuously without interruption from this time forward until the close of the war, and on the 7th day of August, 1865, was surrendered to the Alexandria, Washington and Georgetown Railroad Company. During Company. During the period of its military occupation the value of construction and repairs made it not properly chargeable to the cost of operation amounted to $107,328.88. The transportation from February 9, 1862, to August 7, 1865, three years five months twenty-eight days, was as follows: Number of engines run over the road for other than local construction purposes, 8,939; number of loaded cars, 30,457; number of empty cars, 20,699; total number of cars, 51,156.

In March, 1862, Major-General McClellan instructed me to have a line examined for a railroad from Winchester - the terminus of the Harper's Ferry and Winchester Railroad - to Strasburg a station of the Manassas Gap Railroad, in the Shenandoah Valley, and to make an estimate of the cost. This was completed early in April, but the railroad was not built. March 14, 1862, General McClellan instructed me to have five locomotives and eighty cars loaded upon vessels in the harbor of Baltimore and held subject to his orders with a view to using them in the harbor of Baltimore and held subject to his orders with a view to using them in his contemplated Peninsular campaign. They were purchased from Northern railroads companies, loaded as directed, and remained on the vessels until early in May, when they were sent to White House, Va., and placed upon the Richmond and York River Railroad. Another engine was added in June to the number, and all