Dm E Railroad

150 years later, US Civil War is still tragic and vivid

To outsiders it often seems as if the US really needs to remember and physically replay its Civil War as a kind of national cleansing ritual – a catharsis both noble and somewhat comical in its battlefield re-enactments. The stolid seriousness of accountants and garage mechanics dressed, drilling – and “dying” – watched by thousands of spectators in jeans and T-shirts is quite bizarre. This odd, enlightening and necessary ritual began this weekend, and J BROOKS SPECTOR examines what it’s all about.

In the middle of an extraordinary, baking heat wave across the heart of America, this weekend, more than 10,000 Americans gathered in a suburban Virginia parkland, an hour’s drive from the White House, to watch thousands of other people stage a live re-enactment of the first major battle of the American Civil War. Called Bull Run or Manassas, depending on whether one comes from the North or the South, this battle was the real opening salvo of four years of grinding warfare between the northern and southern halves of the US that brought so much pain and destruction from 1861 to 1865.

As an actual military action in 1861, the battle had some bizarre sides to it. Besides the combatants, often barely trained mobs dressed as soldiers, thousands of spectators also rode out from Washington to watch the real battle 150 years ago as if they were coming to some kind of sports match, bringing their picnic lunches. The Washington Post, looking back at that scene 150 ago, wrote:

“Despite the stifling summer weather — never mind the prospect of bloody combat — scores of onlookers, with parasols and opera glasses, in carriages and on horseback, flocked from Washington to the fields near Manassas for the first big battle of the Civil War. They expected it to be the only big battle.

“Instead, it became one of the most bizarre affairs of the long conflict — warfare as spectator sport, followed by a wild dash for safety — and it happened on July 21, 1861, 150 years ago Thursday….

“The site, amid fragrant grasslands baking in the heat 30 miles from Washington, was just southwest of a murky creek called Bull Run. It was quiet, gorgeous country with the hump of the Bull Run Mountains in the distance, tiny pink wildflowers in the fields and majestic turkey buzzards soaring on the thermals overhead.

Mike's Rails: What Do Those Letters Mean?

. Along with the car serial number, they are used by shippers and railroads to identify specific pieces of rolling stock. All organizations with cars in interchange service are assigned reporting marks by the Association of American Railroads. Some reporting marks may still be registered even though the organizations no longer have cars in interchange service or may still be awaiting delivery of ordered cars. The reporting mark on the car above is CRDX which is the reporting mark for CHICAGO FREIGHT CAR LEASING CO,. [CENTRAL WEST REFRIGERATOR DESPATCH]. Somewhere else on the side of the car is an electronic identification device that's used by trackside scanners to let the railroad know the location of every car in the passing train. Eventually the information is used in calculating the lease or rental charge for the car.

The Official railway equipment register

Hearings

Plunkett's transportation, supply chain & logistics industry almanac

Annual review of ... antitrust law developments

Government control of meat-packing industry, Hearings before the Committee on interstate and foreign commerce of the House of representatives, 65th Congress, 3d session, on H.R. 13324. [Dec. 19-20, 1918, Jan. 2-4, 7-31, Feb. 3-14, 1919]