In 1828, the Baltimore & Ohio railroad was chartered, and 13 miles of railroad track were laid connecting downtown Baltimore to Relay, Maryland. Charles Carroll, the man who broke ground and laid the first stone of the railroad's roundhouse, where its locomotives and cars were stored, said, " I consider this among the most important acts of my life, second only to my signing the Declaration of Independence, if even it be second to that." From 1828 to 1870, the total mileage of railroads increased from 13 to 53,000.
The railroads played a major role in the Civil War. Because of the industrial nature of the Union and its much larger rail network, the Union was able to win the war. By severing ties with Confederate railroads and destroying their property (as General William T. Sherman did to the Western and Atlantic Railroad in his 'March to the Sea'), the southern economy was completely destroyed, and with no way to ship ammunition and guns to Confederate soldiers fighting the Yankees, the south was destined to lose. One famous railroad-related event of the War was the Great Locomotive Chase, in which James J. Andrews and his men from the Union forces hijacked the W&A 'General' in Kennesaw, Georgia and were pursued by the Confederates in the W&A 'Texas'. The Union men twisted the railroad tracks into knots, destroyed telegraph wires, and burned lineside structures, thus destroying the Confederacy's only link to the west. The Union men were caught and executed at Ringgold, Georgia when they ran out of wood to burn in the 'General'.
On May 10, 1869, the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroad met at Promontory Point, Utah to complete the Transcontinental Railroad. Now, goods from the west or east could be shipped to opposite ends of the country. People in the east purchased spices from companies in the west, and people in the west purchased fine clothing from companies in the east. The Transcontinental Railroad also opened up the Frontier, allowing people in the east to venture out into the American west. This vital link also allowed companies with men partaking in the California Gold Rush to ship their gold back to the eastern banks. The first peacetime train robbery occurred on October 6, 1966, when members of the Reno Gang boarded an Ohio & Mississippi train in Seymour, Indiana. They broke into the train and robbed a Wells-Fargo bank box before jumping off. Robberies became more common as the railroads got their footing in the west, with men like Butch Cassidy, Jesse James, and Bill Miner doing their fair share of theft. [Miner is known for his robbery of a Southern Railway train 59 miles northeast of Atlanta.] The advent of the railroad also led to the creation of Standard Time, as railroad offices operated on their own clocks until 1883.
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