Well that's too bad, but thanks for the update Steve!
ALL:
I've been asked to update the Forum regarding the above-mentioned topic, namely correspondence between Messrs. Morgan and Beebe.
Despite my meager efforts, we're reticent to release such correspondence at this time. Put another way: We've got other irons in the fire right now. And so we'll hold off for now.
Best,
Steve S.
Steve SweeneyDigital Editor, Hobby
Bowker photo after Microsoft Photo Editor correction:
You know, I may just send him a PM asking about it. He answered the last PM I sent him.
Just sent it. Let's see what happens.
Bumping this as a reminder to Steve that he still needs to 'put out' ... even if to tell us it's being reserved for a full article or three.
As this is moderated, don't bother to post it if it can be quietly and gently passed to him as a reminder.
The 1850's weren't the first time Massachusetts contemplated secession, the first go-round was during the War of 1812, which the New England states were dead-set against. But that's another story.
I keep thinking of "R.E. Lee and the RF&P." It didn't happen of course, but can you imagine? A good ol' Virginia boy and a home-grown Virginia railroad. Would have been a match made in heaven!
It wasn't likely to happen. Lee could have made big bucks railroading, but he wasn't that kind of man. While enjoying the things money could buy, as most of us do, he never was a money-motivated person. The plain fact of the matter was Lee loved being a soldier, and his assignments with the Corps of Engineers were always challenging and stimulating, to say nothing of taking him to interesting places and people. I'd be very surprised if he didn't get job offers from the prominent citizens he met along the way, considering the way he impressed everyone who met him.
"Here's my card sir! If you ever get tired of the army please come and see me!"
I do agree with the supposition that if Virginia hadn't seceded, and if General Lee accepted the field command of the Union Army the war would have ended much sooner than it did. Lee wouldn't have let himself be bullied into taking the army into the field before it was well-trained and ready, not like poor General Mc Dowell did in the Bull Run campaign. General-in-Chief Winfield Scott, who despite his age still had a fine military mind, and R.E. Lee would have made a good team.
No offense taken Mod-man, even though we moved to Virginia 32 years ago and don't regret it I'm still a Jerseyman at heart!
Getting back to Beebe and Clegg, I seem to recall they did a pictorial on the Civil War in the same style of that pictorial history of the West "Penny Trains" posted. I haven't seen a copy in years, but I do remember checking out a copy from a bookmobile when I was a kid in the '60s.
DeggestyYes, the War for Southern Independence could well have ended sooner.
The War for Southern Autonomy should have been fought when it would have been relatively easy to win, in the early 1850s when Massachusetts was threatening to secede from a Southern-dominated Union. Had the argument remained firmly on states' rights and not become distracted into a defense of the peculiar institution of incompetent chattel slavery, I think the result would have been some sort of negotiated agreement (probably mediated by England) whether or not there was any long string of compelling military victory.
Personally I suspect the outcome against that cautious little McClellan -- for all that I respect him as a railroader -- would have been little different with Johnston than with Bob Lee. I don't think quick action against Grant in the early months would have resulted in anything meaningful other than a forced evacuation of the District of Columbia (probably to either Philadelphia or New York, neither of which were ever thinkable targets for actual Southern military action) with the efflorescence of jingoist Northern sentiment that 'losing DC' would have inspired.
One thing that I think would have influenced the early course of the war would have been adoption of Northern-style 'chattel servitude' mill labor in places like Tredegar, when the time came to build modern munitions quickly and then maintain them. Among the interesting things available to the South at the start of the War was a 48-shot (if I remember the number correctly) repeating rifle using cartridge ammunition with relatively low tendency for powder or primer fouling. It is difficult to imagine any maneuver in the early battles against such a weapon, the point being that the initial 'war of Northern aggression' into the South would have been even more of a fiasco than it evidently had become by 1862, and a mediated peace more likely.
Yes, the War for Southern Independence could well have ended sooner. And if Hiram Ulysses Grant had been in command in Virginia in 1862, the war could have been ended sooner. I do not know the result if General Joe Johnston had not been wounded early in the Seven Days' Battle (McClellan's retreat to Hampton Roads), and man trained in engineering appointed to command the army of Northern Virginia.
Johnny
As an ex-Louisianan, I feel I have to correct your statement further: "For openers, South Carolina's pointless war of aggression might have ended in a lot less time..."
Or indeed, never gotten to the point that it involved Virginia, a state that really Knew Better, or Alabama, the only region that actually had much chance of sustaining itself in a confederated model, or Louisiana, which would suffer far more from attempting to secede than it would ever have gained from the Davis model of CSA run incompetently from Richmond (no offense, Wayne, but they really folded up dismally there at the end, the only time their own 'competence' became involved...)
There's a reason I recognize the firing on Sumter every year by flying the Palmetto Flag upside down, the international symbol of distress. Too much mouth and not enough brain down there where North Carolina tapers off.
Compare the two here...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPXEdJ_Gtx0
CSSHEGEWISCHFor openers, the Southern Rebellion may have been put down in a lot less time.
As a Louisianian, I have to correct your statement: "For openers, the War of Northern Aggression may have ended in a lot less time." (Please don't take me seriously!)
York1 John
Flintlock76 Makes me wonder how American history would have been different if General Lee had quit the Army in say, 1840 or so and gone railroading. As a West Point trained engineer his services would have been quite in demand!
Makes me wonder how American history would have been different if General Lee had quit the Army in say, 1840 or so and gone railroading. As a West Point trained engineer his services would have been quite in demand!
I haven't forgotten either, I'm just tired of asking about it.
If it ever shows up it'll land like a thunderbolt or if the correspondence is about nothing it won't show up at all.
Interesting article on "Robert E. Lee's Railroad." Had me scratching my head for a bit, "Robert E. Lee's WHAT?" But then it all made sense.
Flintlock76I did some checking and the quote is from Beebe's "Mixed Train Daily," and it's not a Beebe quote. The quote is from D.W. Thomas, the owner of the Chesapeake Western...
Ironic, then, that the Chesapeake Western dieselized very early, with splendid if low-horsepower Baldwins -- and with publicity in the Baldwin magazine in 1948 about "Robert E. Lee's Railroad Goes Diesel." Note the specific reference to the motor trains so blasted in Beebe's Thomas quote. Note also the many innovations hinted at in Thomas' approach to business -- and their costs.
Two of the three Baldwins were the last Lost Engines of Roanoke and one of those, beautifully cosmetically restored, is one of the crown jewels at VMT. I find a certain irony in all this...
Bumping this. I have not forgotten. Y'all shouldn't forget, either.
Steve promised us correspondence, nearly a month ago. Surely it's time for the first installment ... perhaps in sync with publicity for the 75th anniversary book on DPM?
My dad had a copy of this book and I inherited it:
512 pages with hundreds of half tone drawings from sources that are often overlooked(?) today (Harper's Weekly, The Police Gazzette, etc.). A fairly easy read too.
When I showed it to the retired Army Master Sargeant I worked with back in the 80's at Cedar Point, he said "Lucius Beebe? Sounds like 'luscious boob'"
Also, I don't know if there's a blood tie or not, but my mom does the bookkeeping for a lawyer named Beebe.
Trains, trains, wonderful trains. The more you get, the more you toot!
LIFE and Death
Did you know?... that Beebe's Father died in Pennsylvania Station while waiting at a departure gate with family members. A year earlier Lucius lost his brother, a war hero, in a plane crash.
That's too bad. Perhaps later... meanwhile Mike sends this
That's a fascinating trove of information about the 2-4-0 Bowker, but I don't think that's the 4-4-0 Beebe attributes to Hungerford.
MiningmanOvermod-- your attachment didn't fly
Source encoding was incompatible. Damned if I don't remember one of Beebe's books having a picture of turbines 1 and 2 and the 4-4-0 together!
The owner of the Virginia & Truckee RR was the uncle of Beebe's big boss at the Herald Tribune, which was a great paper.
Overmod-- your attachment didn't fly
Is that the same UP 58 that was photographed (and run with) the UP turbines 1 and 2?
Someone needs to fact-check this, but I think...
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/NysAAOSw~~NbXdJb/s-l1600.jpg
His most recent acquisition, a graceful American-type locomotive in a beautiful state of preservation, he planned to drive East himself as an advertisement for the World’s Fair, but the Interstate Commerce Commission ruled that it would need new boiler tubes before they could permit it to run under its own power over a regular right of way, so the project was shelved and the engine is being towed East in less grandiose style.
... I think the way it was 'towed east' might have been FAR more grandiose than just running it under its own power.
In fact, if I'm not mistaken, it had no fewer than 5000 available streamlined-steam horsepower to do it.
Easier to read larger type:
Real Trains Are His Toys by Lucius Beebe, March 19, 1939
Interesting stuff here!
I wonder what the story was behind Mr. Weston's dismissal as military storekeeper?
Lucius Beebe and Walter Winchell. Winchell used to call him "Luscious Lucius," but not I suppose to his face! Beebe looked pretty formidable.
Great shot of that coastal defense gun on the "disappearing" mount! The usual photos you see of them have them in concrete revetments. Another casualty of WW2, they were all dismantelled and scrapped post-war, their time had come and gone.
Mixed Train Daily
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