NP, RD 12/9/1861

From the Richmond Daily Dispatch
 
December 9, 1861
  
Proposed railway connection
   A resolution has been introduced in the House of Delegates, inquiring into the expediency of establishing a connecting railway between the Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac Railroad and the Manassas Gap Railroad. Viewed as a matter of defence to the Northern frontier, the subject at once favorably presents itself to the mind, and a brief examination will demonstrate its utility. At present we have but a single line of railway connecting the capital with the main body of our army, which, we need hardly say, is inadequate for the immense amount of transportation now imposed upon it. Indeed, the President of the {Virginia} Central Railroad, in his late report, shows that the trains are in constant demand, both day and night, for Government uses, while the completion of an important section of that road was delayed for want of means to transport the iron. A connecting railway from Manassas Junction to a point near Brooke's Station, on the Fredericksburg road, would vastly increase the facilities of transporting troops and stores from Richmond, and provide the means of moving any portion of the army from one point to another in the event of a sudden and unexpected emergency. We are not among those who look for ward to a speedy termination of the war, and hence we advise the adoption of permanent measures of resistance. The railway connection proposed would be useful in war, and no less desirable in peace. A combined movement of Congress and the State Legislature would doubtless result in the adoption of some plan for its successful prosecution.

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