"Roads in the ACW period" Topic

Being on the other side of The Pond, I am not familiar with the roads in the US.

My question is how best to portray roads in the Civil War period. Were they dirt roads or were some major roads between towns (turnpikes?) constructed of cobblestone?

Any tips would be appreciated as we are currently setting up a table for First Bull Run, using Bloody Big Battles which Santa kindly brought me.

Thanks,

Alan

Mostly dirt roads, I think. Even in the towns.

Mostly dirt but if a toll road I believe that would make it macadamized being a prepared surface causing repayment.

Definitely dirt

Roads and tracks were typically dirt, with the most important distinction being whether or not drainage (ditches) had been provided. Undrained roadways (IMO) would soon be made impassable by a combination of rain and heavy traffic. Main roads could also be of dirt, but were almost certainly ditched for drainage – although this does not by any means imply that they could not also be turned into highly respectable quagmires by enough heavy rain and traffic.

Important main roads might be of "plank" construction (such as the famous "Plank Road", which played such a prominent role in the Wilderness) or more rarely macadamized (for example, the Valley Pike running through the Shenandoah). These were the only types of thoroughfare that might in any way be considered "all-weather" – hence their tactical and operational importance.

Then there were the primitive "corduroy roads" built by army pioneers/engineers on an ad hoc basis – usually driven through previously undeveloped and impassable terrain (woods, swamps, etc).

The above probably best describes roads in the eastern theater. The road network in the west was probably rather less well developed.

Go here for a good general discussion – link

B

This seems about right for a road.

The huge distances involved meant that few roads outside of cities and towns were paved. And this was true well into the 20th century.

Also, since horses pulled wagons they churned up the center of the road. You will not see a line of vegetation in the middle of the road like you will with modern dirt roads where the middle is relatively undisturbed.

Dirt dirt dirt, could be dry dirt, could be wet dirt, could be mud, could be in wet times a stream, then there is dirt mixed with stone and gravel, dirt with rocks, dirt with cow and horse flop in it. There were cobblestones in towns, occasionally, usually in large ones, but this was only on the sides. The center were dirt- and horse flop. They had things called Plank Roads which were heavy planks set scross stone risers. These were a little better but the planks soon rotted and you had dirt, but dirt mixed with fragments of rotten woodl- and horse flop.

cow flop and now fragments of rotten wood.

Scott Washburn is correct, it was only with the construction of the Interstate Highway system which began with the Eisenhower administration that the modern super-highways that America got a really good system of roads. Before that it was a welter of state and local projects, but most roads remained dirt.

People travelling long distances back in the 19th and early 20th century used railroads.

That picture above is perfect.

Yeah, asphalt didn't get going in the US until post war and mostly in larger cities. So, dirt, and plank roads – and gravel covered certainly.

However, I'd guess any 'quality' road would quickly succumb to the much higher traffic of an army – or two – at war and become the much taunted mud march lanes of the war.

I am curious about Cleburne statement regarding horses churning up the center of the road. I guess if it is a single horse or tandem teams but I wonder if normal teams would cause that? Don't know, just curious because I haven't heard this before.

If there is even a little mud a team will tear up ground leaving little of a center "safe zone" for vegetation. Plus foot traffic and riders also used those roads, so a center strip of grass is unusual for any significant road.

Which explains the critical role of railroads.

Also, when you consider heavier used roads may be a little wider to allow wagons and teams to pass, the horses, wheels and other traffic would tear up any vegetation.

From my understanding, some turnpikes like the Valley Turnpike and some other major ones had a gravel surface. I am sure this became mixed with some mud/dirt over time. So the only real difference would be that the better turnpikes would not become a mass of deep mud in wet weather. Essentially the better maintained roads would not be as rutted.

I remember somewhere that Southern troops didn't like marching in Maryland because the road were crushed stone and it hurt there bare feet.

Many thanks.

Dirt indeed it is.

Alan

Some apparently were macadamized. The McElfresh maps of Getysburg show the Baltimore Pike as "tar and stone" with the others as dirt.

I remember reading somewhere that the Chambersburg Pike was macadamized, but McElfresh shows it as dirt. Also, photos at or about the time of the battle show ruts and only scattered evidence of stones.

The above statement: "…it was only with the construction of the Interstate Highway system which began with the Eisenhower administration that the modern super-highways that America got a really good system of roads. Before that it was a welter of state and local projects, but most roads remained dirt," is ridiculous.

The US had lots and lots and lots of paved highways long before the Eisenhower administration which began in 1952. This country did not go from dirt roads to the Interstate system in one jump.

Look at photos or newsreels.

When I was a kid we went on lots of vacations before Interstate highways were built. They did not appear all in one fell swoop. I do not remember being on a dirt road one time. My father wouldn't do that with his car.

I wonder where some of these ideas come from.

Tom

I should add that if you search around there are lots of photos of Civil War roads.

Tom

Most turnpikes (such as the Valley Pike in the Shenandoah Valley) were "macadamized," that is paved by a process invented by a Scotsman named MacAdam. It mostly involved crushed rock or gravel, I believe. You could Google it. The Orange Plank Road, that ran through the Wilderness (from Orange County) was something like a wooden sidewalk. It was in bad repair by the time of the battle of the Wilderness.

GaryOwen is correct about the US highways before the interstate highways -- state and federal highways were paved, mostly with blacktop, by the '20s and '30s. What distinguished the interstate highways was that they were divided, with at least 2 lanes in both directions, and had limited access, with merging lanes, thus eliminating stoplights and stop signs. Eisenhower got the idea from the German autobahns.

Here is a good link for the Valley Turnpike: link

Most photos I have seen show some gravel, but still evidence of mud/dirt. The road surface was deep with stone and packed so it could handle the weight etc. No doubt still some mud/dirt as this would wash onto the road, and be deposited there from wagons etc.

Also, goggle Valley Turnpike Photos for some other period photos.

link

Having traveled before the Interstate system I can fully state that the idea that prior to it most/many roads in the US remained dirt is just plain wrong. At the time of the Civil War it is true that most roads between and in small town were dirt, pikes though were often Macadamized, for example the road from Hagerstown MD to Boonesboro MD was finished by 1822, the National Pike was done in 1830. Macadam's method was more sophisticated than just laying down gravel and was intended to keep the surface from being pushed down into the dirt and mud.

Large city street were often cobblestoned, the whole street not just the sides of them. Now that didn't mean that they didn't acquire dirt and other stuff, in fact I have seen a young woman's comments on an occasion in the 1850s when the City of New York cleaned the streets in the Five Points neighborhood that she was shocked to see that under a liberal coat of dirt and other stuff that the street was cobblestone.

Which explains the critical role of railroads.

And rivers and canals.

The growth of the paved road system was a slow one with them basically radiating outward from the cities. So in the heavily populated east you found a lot of paved roads by the early 20th century. But out west there were few. One of the reasons Eisenhower was so keen on building the interstate system was that shortly after World War I he was put in charge of an experiment by the army to see if a fully motorized unit could travel from the east coast to the west coast. Once he got west of the Mississippi Eisenhower found that he was following the same dirt wagon ruts that the original settlers had made. It took him something like 3 months to complete the journey.

True perhaps but believe me, most roads in the US were paved long before the Interstate system and not just in the East.

Some road examples around and leading into Sharpsburg, MD 1862--lots of dirt.

Hagerstown turnpike on the right hand side of the fence:

link

Road by the Lutheran Church on the main road just outside Sharpsburg.

Main Street, Sharpsburg

This is Lee's HQ with Chambersburg Pike in the foreground.

When I was a kid I remember regularly driving on "dirt" roads in the South. Most were actually improved surface roads, but to someone used to concrete and black top it was something I didn't notice.

I suspect when it comes to ACW roads you run into the same issue. Certainly you would have had a large number of true dirt roads looking like Elmo's picture. However it does seem that improved surfaces were not too unusual on major roads, at least in Virginia. Techniques included surfacing with gravel, macadamized surfaces, plank roads and dirt laid over corduroy roadbeds. I haven't read of cobblestone streets outside of towns. (Doesn't mean there weren't any but I haven't heard of them.) Statutes in the early 19th century frequently directed that turnpikes be macadamized. Later you see statutes authorizing plank roads. You also see a number of statutes that don't indicate a required surface, so it appears this wasn't an automatic requirement.

Of course requiring it was one thing, actually constructing it that way was another, and maintaining it afterwards was something else. Then you have the problem that many improved surface load roads simply were not built to the standards needed to handle heavy wartime traffic in adverse weather conditions. I suspect that what made the Valley Pike somewhat unique was not that it was an improved surface road; It was that the Valley Pike was a well maintained improved surface road that held up relatively well under wartime conditions.

When it comes to depicting them, it probably doesn't matter whether we are talking about improved or unimproved surface.

Here in central Illinois many roads with in towns were red brick. I always guessed they were from the 1800's.

Brick/cobble roads existed here in Maryland, but only on a few main roads in the major cities of Annapolis and Baltimore. Frederick was still dirt.

They recently opened up a road in Fairfax Virginia and found the original corduroy surface underneath the modern road. Let's see if I can find the article again. Here you go: link
link

Here is stone bridge at Bull Run, taken march 1862:

Here is the Orange and Alexander railroad bridge at bull run. Likely in 1863.

I was born around the end of WWII & well remember traveling on state highways & county roads in the Midwest & South prior to 1952. The former were all paved & the latter were either asphalt or gravel. None were dirt.
The interstate highway system wasn't completed until well into the 1970's.

Actually the US Highway system ('US 66','US 30', 'US 101', etc) dates back to the late '20s. Much of the country had paved intercity roads by the late '30s. The Interstate system of the Eisenhower period was approved in 1956.

I was born in '39, got my driver's license in '57, and I well remember barreling down 2-lane asphalt highways at 65 mph (or more).

BTW, it took decades to build out the interstate highway system. Not sure its completed yet, actually.