Engineer, soldier, and inventor, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Chief engineer of the Pennsylvania Railroad (18536), he served as head of the strategically vital US military railroads during the Civil War. Author of General Theory of Bridge Construction (1851), and inventor of a pneumatic drill (1858), he worked with railroads and other companies after the Civil War.
Herman Haupt (March 26, 1817 – December 14, 1905) was an American civil engineer and railroad construction engineer and executive. As a Union Army general in the American Civil War, he revolutionized military transportation in the United States and was one of the unsung heroes of the war.
Early life
Haupt, whose first name was sometimes spelled Hermann, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Jacob and Anna Margaretta Wiall Haupt. He worked as a construction engineer on the Norristown Railroad and engaged in bridge and tunnel construction.
From 1840 to 1847, Haupt was a professor of mathematics and engineering at Gettysburg College (which at that time was named Pennsylvania College). He returned to the railroad business in 1847, becoming a construction engineer on the Pennsylvania Railroad, and then general superintendent from 1849 to 1851. He was the chief engineer of the Southern Railroad of Mississippi from 1851 to 1853, and the chief engineer of the Pennsylvania Railroad until 1856;
Civil War
In the spring of 1862, a year after the start of the Civil War, the U.S. War Department organized a new bureau responsible for constructing and operating military railroads in the United States. On April 27, Haupt was appointed chief of the bureau by Secretary of War Edwin M. He repaired and fortified war-damaged railroad lines in the vicinity of Washington, arming and training railroad staff, and improved telegraph communications along the railroad lines. Among his most challenging assignments was restoring the Richmond and Fredericksburg Railroad line, including the Potomac Creek Bridge, which he repaired in nine days. In a visit on May 28, 1862, he observed: "That man Haupt has built a bridge four hundred feet long and one hundred feet high, across Potomac Creek, on which loaded trains are passing every hour, and upon my word, gentlemen, there is nothing in it but cornstalks and beanpoles."
Haupt was promoted to brigadier general on September 5, 1862, but he officially 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). During that year as a general, however, he made an enormous impact on the Union war effort. The Civil War was one of the first wars in which large-scale railroad transportation was used to move and supply armies rapidly over long distances. After the battle, Haupt boarded one of his trains and arrived at the White House on July 6, 1863, being the first to inform President Lincoln that General Robert E.
Postbellum
After his war service, Haupt returned to railroad, bridge, pipeline, and tunnel construction. He was the general manager of Piedmont Air-Line Railroad (from Richmond, Virginia, to Atlanta, Georgia), 1872 to 1876; general manager of the Northern Pacific Railroad, 1881 to 1885; president of the Dakota and Great Southern Railroad, 1885 to 1886. He was a wealthy man from his investments in railroads, mining, and Pennsylvania real estate, but he eventually lost most of his fortune, in part due to political complications involving the completion of the Hoosac Tunnel.
Herman Haupt died of a heart attack at age 88 in Jersey City, New Jersey, stricken while traveling in a Pullman car named "Irma" on a journey from New York to Philadelphia. This 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.
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