“All of our trains are ordered to Corinth…”

“All of our trains are ordered to Corinth…”. - R.B. Lewis, Superintendent, New Orleans, Jackson, and Great Northern Railroad, March 1862. The famous long distance railroads intersecting in Corinth in 1862 formed two links in a shaky network of rails crisscrossing Mississippi and her neighboring states. This network proved critical when General Albert Sidney Johnston began concentrating Confederate forces at Corinth from all over the mid-south. A section of particular importance was the New Orleans, Jackson, and Great Northern Railroad. Completed in 1858, the 206-mile-long line stretched from New Orleans to Canton, Mississippi. In the build-up of troops prior to the Battle of Shiloh, nine regiments and three battalions of infantry, as well as four artillery batteries, were dispatched by rail from New Orleans to assist General Johnston., Travel on the New Orleans, Jackson, and Great Northern Railroad was not without danger. On the foggy night of February 27, 1862, a train carrying the 7th Mississippi Infantry left New Orleans en-route to Corinth. At 4 o’clock in the morning, the troop train collided head-on with a lumber train near Ponchatoula, Louisiana, killing eighteen sleeping soldiers instantly, and injuring dozens of others, several fatally., The Federal capture of New Orleans, and a year later Jackson, limited the use of the NOJ&GN Railroad. As the war progressed, the line became a repeated target of United States troops. Frequent raids by cavalry and infantry, including troops under General William T. Sherman, often brought travel to a complete halt for months at a time. On July 18,1863, a Union cavalry raid inflicted so much damage on the line, a year was required to repair it all., This piece of iron rail dating to the Civil War period was found in Jackson, Mississippi, close to the Pearl River., (captions) , The “Gen. Haupt” of the U.S. Military Railroads, was a 4x4x0 locomotive, the same type used on the NO, J and GN., One dollar railroad script for the New Orleans, Jackson, and Great Northern Railroad., Virginia. Tracks of the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, destroyed by the Confederates between Bristow Station and the Rappahannock. Library of Congress., Atlanta, Georgia. Sherman’s men destroying railroad. Library of Congress., A map of the NO, J and GN showing the different stops along the route.