Image ID: AAFE

Haupt, United States Military Railway Department. Construction And Transportation. No. 80.

Haupt, Photographs Illustrative of Operations In Construction And Transportation, As Used To Facilitate The Movements Of The Armies Of The Rappahannock, Of Virginia, And Of The Potomac, Including Experiments Made To Determine The Most Practical and Expeditious Modes To Be Resorted To In The Construction, Destruction and Reconstruction Of Roads And Bridges. No. 80–The possibility of using such rafts for artillery having been questioned, I determined to settle it by direct experiment. A raft was made of thirty boats, six lengths and five widths. Across the middle of the six tiers of boats, six round sticks were laid and tied to the top rails. Across these longitudinally, were placed two sticks, each 26 feet long and on these again 50 railroad ties, to form a floor. See No. 78. The structure was very stiff, and no difficulty was presented in running the artillery, (twelve-pounders,) on and off by hand. By extending the raft to nine lengths, the horses could be driven on with the piece, without detaching. I found, by measurement, that the distance from the head of the front horse to the rear of the hind wheel was forty-three feet. No. 79 illustrates the experiment with artillery. No. 80, in addition to the artillery men, contains twenty infantry, and the weight of the ties which constituted the flooring was equivalent to thirty-three men more. In using this system, poles or fence rails would constitute flooring, where boards or plank could not be procured. No. 81 represents an empty raft without flooring.

Haupt, Reminiscences of General Herman Haupt, plate 25. Raft of Blanket Boats Ferrying Field Artillery and Men Over Potomac River.