AR, SC 1/1/1866 P

Annual Report of the South Carolina RR
as of January 1, 1866,
President's Report
 
Report of the President and Directors
 
Office of the South Carolina Railroad Company
Charleston, February 7, 1866
 
To the Stockholders of the South Carolina Railroad Company:
   The usual annual report of the president ant directors is respectfully submitted, together with that of the superintendent, and the statements of the auditor. It is hardly necessary to mention that there was no meeting held in February last, as called in Columbia, for reasons so generally known. The present direction, as provided for in the charter, continued to administer the affairs of the company to the present time, restrained in their disposition to call together the stockholders at an earlier period, by the discouraging prospect of success, growing out of the difficulties of their transportation.
   The period immediately preceding the date at which the last meeting should have been held, and extending to the 19th day of June last, was a blank in the history of the company. The separated upper ends of our lines were alone in our possession, and these, for all practical purposes, were valueless to us from various considerations -- chiefly from the irregular disposition of our means of transportation, and the lack of paying business in the disorganized condition of the State.
   On the 17th of February, under an imperative military order, all the locomotives, cars, and movable property of the company at the time in Charleston were withdrawn, and after being hauled on the Northeastern, Cheraw & Darlington and Wilmington railroads, from point to point, as circumstances demanded, were finally located on the Camden branch, beyond which they could not be carried because of the destruction of the Wateree bridge. There this property remained safely in charge, personally, of the general superintendent, until about the 20th of April, when an expedition under General Potter, from the coast, destroyed most of it for present use, though many of the locomotives may be repaired.
   In like manner and for similar reasons, and at the same time, all the property of the company which happened to be at Columbia, on the approach of General Sherman's army, capable of being moved, was withdrawn to the Charlotte {& South Carolina} road, and has there remained to this date. Beyond the natural deterioration resulting from exposure and occasional depredations, impossible to guard against when property was strung along a line of over fifty miles, no injury has been sustained by what was brought out of Columbia. But the damage inflicted upon what was left at that place, and upon the line above Orangeburg, on the Columbia branch, and above the Edisto river on the Hamburg division, was painfully great. At Columbia all the shops, depots, and buildings of every description, most of the valuable tools, many new and of the most approved makes, with all the appliances of as complete a shop, just finished, as, for its design, perhaps the southern country could exhibit -- all these, together with a very large and most valuable collection of material, obtained only with great difficulty and at great expense, were utterly destroyed. On the line of the road between the points indicated, with rare exceptions, the entire wooden structures, cross-ties, culverts, station houses, water tanks, experienced a like fate; and the rails burnt, twisted, and bent into shapes utterly baffling all efforts at restoration. Thus generally are presented the disastrous effects of the movements of the armies across the State, and from which this company, with the other important interests of the State, has suffered so severely. For particular information respecting the losses and injuries sustained by the property, reference is requested to the report of the superintendent.
   *****
Respectfully, &c., &c.,
W. J. Magrath
President

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