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6 HISTORY OF CLEVELAND
were in the most deplorable condition, and in the midst of chaos, and for imperative
demands for endless transportation to and from the advancing armies, General
McCallum was suddenly called to the head of the department of railroads,
and in turn summoned Colonel Devereux to act as the controller and chief of the
Virginia lines, with headquarters at Alexandria and Washington.
"The work was herculean, and its difficulties were well nigh insurmountable,
the constant assaults of the enemy upon the roads being almost equal in injurious
effect to the intolerance and ignorance of the Federal officers, whose ambition
by turn extended to the special ownership and direction of every mile of track,
and every car and locomotive. No definite line was drawn between the jurisdiction
of the chiefs of the road management, of the war department and of the
army, but the written law was none the less exacting as laid down by the quartermaster's
and commissaries' departments, by ordinance and hospital departments,
by the chiefs in command in the field. Through the whole ran the demands necessitated
by the movement of large bodies of troops, of batteries and pntoon
trains, and the carriage of the sick and wounded.
"The roads were infested with suspicious characters and peddlers and the
trains swarmed with these, to the injury of every interest in the service. There
was no time for preparation. Colonel Devereux plunged into the chaotic mass
and, meeting unmoved each obstacle, laid at once the foundation of discipline
and brought the strictest order and obedience into almost instant action. He filled
the reconstructed shops with tools and the roads with adequate equipments;
quietly and patiently but persistently developed the system of military railroad
law and made it harmonize with the regulations of each department. He swept
away with a single stroke every peddler and leech and spy and thief from trains
which now became in reality 'through trains of government supplies' as the orders
required, and were manned and officered with the most rigid discipline. He
organized a corps of inspection and detection that swept away all that was bad or
suspicious, and made his eye the chief sentinel of the army, before which everything
and everybody had to pass for recognition and approval.
"With strong practical sense he avoided clashing between the departments
by fitting the vast machine of transportation to their wants, and thus aided greatly
all the plans of General Haupt, as of his predecessor, General McCallum. With
unwearied energy he developed the resources of the same ponderous machine
until Alexandria became the center of a great system, that worked with the precision
of a chronometer in the distribution, under his hand, of countless stores,
munitions and troops. It mattered but little how many roadways or bridges were
destroyed by the enemy, the railroad trains were never behind. Major General
Meade particularly was supplied with rations and forage 'so magnificently' as he
expressed it, under all circumstances, that his repeatedly expressed appreciation
removed the last obstacle that might have remained to cause friction to the system.
"It was a gallant thing, with Pope's army driven back and scattered in confusion,
to bring into Alexandria every car and engine in safety-—in some cases
working the cars up the grades by hand while the ground trembled with the shock
of battle. Such work as this he repeatedly performed. It was a noble labor,
that of caring for the sick and wounded, which was made a part of the military
railroad work, and the United States Sanitary Commission gratefully acknowledged
his constant and valuable aid in this direction. No officer stood better with
the war secretary nor with the president, and, holding a position which could
have been turned into a source of immense personal gain, his integrity was beyond
doubt-—no man dared even attempt to bribe him. He directed and moved men
and machines by a thorough system, and the result was great smoothness in
operation and precision in management; hence the promptness of movement
and immunity from serious accident which marked the working of these military
railroads."
Having successfully accomplished his task in connection with military railroad
work, in the spring of 1864 Colonel Devereux turned his attention to services of
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