Lone worker using a Jack-Screw to straighten slight bends in a train rail.
Library of Congress
Among the countless non-combat duties in the U.S. Army during the Civil War, straightening twisted railroad rails surely ranked among the most mind-numbing. The work was a construction project conjured up by Brigadier General Herman Haupt, the innovative engineer who was chief of the U.S. Military Railroads. Many rails that had seemingly been destroyed—by either Union or Confederate forces looking to disrupt enemy transportation capabilities—apparently could be straightened, as long as they had not been radically twisted into a spiral or corkscrew (like some of those pictured in this image). In his 1901 memoir of the war, Haupt described the lone worker in this photo as “straightening slight bends in a rail by use of [a] Jack-Screw.” The image was taken in Alexandria, Virginia, by Captain Andrew J. Russell, official photographer of the U.S. Military Railroads. Nothing is known about the anonymous laborer, who clearly has his work cut out for him.
Bob Zeller is president of the nonprofit Center for Civil War Photography, which is devoted to collecting, preserving, and digitizing Civil War images.
