Herman Haupt
Herman Haupt | |
---|---|
Born | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | March 26, 1817
Died | December 14, 1905 Jersey City, New Jersey | (aged 88)
Place of burial | |
Allegiance | United States |
Service/ | United States Army |
Years of service | 1835; 1862–1863 |
Rank | Brigadier General |
Commands held | U.S. Military Railroads |
Battles/wars | American Civil War |
Signature |
Herman Haupt (March 26, 1817 – December 14, 1905) was an American
Early and family life
Haupt (whose first name was sometimes spelled Hermann) was born in
On August 30, 1838, in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, he married Ann Cecelia (Celia) Keller, with whom he would have seven sons and four daughters. In the 1870 census, Louis, Herman, Charles, Frank and Alex were living at home with their parents in Philadelphia's Ward 10, as were their sisters Mary and Ella.[2]
Early career
Haupt resigned his Army commission on September 30, 1835, to accept a job under
In 1839, Haupt patented a bridge construction technique called the Haupt Truss.[5] Two of his Haupt truss bridges, both built in 1854, still stand in Altoona and Ardmore, Pennsylvania.
In 1840, Haupt was appointed a
From 1851 until 1853, Haupt was the chief engineer of the Southern Railroad of
He was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society in 1871.[7]
Civil War
In the spring of 1862, a year after the start of the Civil War, the
Haupt was promoted to brigadier general of volunteers on September 5, 1862, but he initially refused the appointment, explaining that he would be happy to serve without official rank or pay, but he did not want to limit his freedom to work in private business – and he privately bridled at the protocols and discipline of Army service. He worked with Gen. Daniel McCallum, a fellow railroad man and later became good friends with John H. Devereux, the Superintendent of the United States Military Railroad at Alexandria, Virginia and later General Superintendent of the Cleveland & Pittsburgh Railroad. However, he chafed at dealing with other Union army commanders. He also preferred civilian crews, including those consisting of former slaves ("contraband negroes"), to military ones. His Construction Corps had 300 men divided into 10-man squads by June 1862, and was later enlarged to include bridge-builders, then construction of freight cars, barracks, wharves, warehouses, etcetera. Its range of operation was extended to Tennessee and it accompanied Sherman's thrust through Georgia under the direction of Colonel William Wierman Wright and division engineer Eben C. Smeed.[8]
Haupt also experimented with bridge demolition using "torpedoes", as mines were called at the time, inserted in holes drilled in trusses. He also discussed in a November 1862 report various methods of destroying locomotives, determining that firing a cannon ball through the boiler rendered it irreparable, while locomotives with fireboxes drained then fired could be repaired. He also tested a lightweight 2-clamp "rail-twister" invented by his subordinate Eben C. Smeed,[9] for use in raids behind enemy lines.[10]
Offered promotion again in early autumn 1863, Haupt hinged his acceptance on three conditions: that a central Bureau of U.S. Military Railroads be established to inspect, direct, and receive reports concerning construction and operation of all military railroads; difficulties with commanding generals be avoided through consultation and cooperation within their departments; the chief of the bureau should be free to move wherever his personal presence was necessary or to attend to whatever public or private business required his attention.[11] The War Department declined to accept his terms. Haupt's appointment was eventually rescinded on September 5, 1863, and he left the service on September 14.
During his year as a general, however, he made an enormous impact on the
During his service, Haupt developed and implemented "general principles of railroad supply operation" and "also detailed methods of construction and destruction of railroad equipment". His two main principles were that the military should never interfere with the efficient running of the railroad and that rolling stock should be emptied and returned promptly to enable their re-use as transport.[1][12]
Postbellum
After his war service, Haupt returned to railroad, bridge, pipeline, and tunnel construction. He worked with the
Haupt became wealthy from investments in railroads, mining, and Pennsylvania real estate, but eventually lost most of his fortune, in part due to political complications involving the completion of the Hoosac Tunnel. He and his wife purchased a small resort hotel at Mountain Lake in Giles County, Virginia. He invented a drilling machine that won the highest prize of the Royal Polytechnic Society of Great Britain and was the first to prove the practicability of transporting oil in pipes.
Haupt also authored several papers and books: Hints on Bridge Building (1840), The General Theory of Bridge Construction (1851), Plan for the Improvement of the Ohio River (1855), Military Bridges (1864) and Reminiscences (1901).[13][14]
Death and legacy
Haupt died of a heart attack at age 88 in
Selected works
- Hints on Bridge Building, published in 1840
- General Theory of Bridge Construction, 1851
- Plan for Improvement of the Ohio River, 1855
- Military Bridges, 1864
- Report upon the System of the Holly Steam Combination Co. Ltd., 1879
- Reminiscences of General Herman Haupt Wright & Joys, 1901 - United States - 331 pages
In popular culture
- Haupt is a character in the alternate history novels Gettysburg: A Novel of the Civil War and Grant Comes East by Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen.
- Haupt also appears in the TV miniseries The Blue and the Gray by Walter Brooke.[16]
See also
References
Notes
- ^ ISBN 978-1-84887-172-4.
- ^ 1870 U.S. Federal census for District 28, Ward 10, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, family 119
- ^ Wilson, Wiliam Bender (1900). General Superintendents of the Pennsylvania Railroad Division, Pennsylvania Railroad Co (Google eBook). Philadelphia Penn: Kensington Press.
- ^ "Haupt Obituary". Railroad Gazette, Volume 39 (Google eBook). December 22, 1905. Retrieved May 7, 2013.
- ^ In a letter to the U. S. Patent Office ("Specification of Letters Patent No. 1,445, dated December 27, 1839") Haupt explained his new construction method: "The construction of a lattice bridge without counterbraces, but consisting simply of braces inclined at any proposed angle and ties which are perpendicular to the lower chord, the chords being either straight or curved."
Sourced from North Carolina article on Bunker Hill Covered Bridge - ^ Abdill (1961), p. 10
- ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved April 28, 2021.
- ^ Abdill (1961), pp.10-11, 53, 82
- ^ Reminiscences of General Herman Haupt Wright & Joys, 1901 pp. 198
- ^ Abdill pp.45, 56
- ^ National Archives, RG 108, Entry 22, M1635, Herman Haupt to Edwin M. Stanton, September 11, 1863; Herman Haupt to Henry W. Halleck, September 11, 1863
- ISBN 978-1-84887-172-4.
- Appleton's Cyclopediavol 3, p. 116
- ^ Abdill (1961), p.10
- ^ Civil War High Commands
- ^ Hopkins, Jonathan. "The Blue and the Gray". IMDB.
Bibliography
- Abdill, George B. (1961) Civil War Railroads: A Pictorial Story of the War Between the States, 1861-1865 Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press.
- Eicher, John H., and ISBN 0-8047-3641-3
- Haupt online biography
Further reading
- Frey, Robert L., ed. (1988) Railroads in the Nineteenth Century. Encyclopedia of American Business History and Biography series. New York: Facts on File. ISBN 978-0-8160-2012-6
- alternate history novel (and its sequel, Grant Comes East) is one of the few popular books related to the war to acknowledge the importance of Haupt's contributions.
- Ward, James A. (1973) That Man Haupt: A Biography of Herman Haupt. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. ISBN 978-0-8071-0225-1
External links
- Herman Haupt Bridge
- Biography at West Laurel Hill Cemetery web site
- "Adams County Historical Society vignette". Archived from the original on October 12, 2006. Retrieved September 25, 2005.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link) about Haupt's early days in Gettysburg - Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. 1892. .
- New International Encyclopedia. 1905.
.
- Herman Haupt at Find a Grave
- Herman Haupt papers (MS 269). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library.[1]