The South was not as backward in 1856 as sometimes asserted, indeed, it's been said (though I can't confirm) that, on average, Southerners lived closer to railroads than Northerners.
Their problem, of course, was they had little industrial infrastructure to build & maintain railroads, depending on their cotton exports to pay for everything.
Similar, we might say, to some oil-rich countries today.
What an intriguing map.
The nearest rail heads to us here in western Iowa were at the Mississippi River and at St. Joe, Missouri.
Iowa had only been a state for four years. Our part of the state only had a smattering of people.
The railroad map is awesome. But it does shed a different light than the original map. The original map (to me) creates an impression of slavery on the ascendancy. The railroad map shows that the slaves were where the railroads were not as dense and vice versa.
The following is from Historic Texas Net. [Paragraph breaks for readability and minor typo corrections are mine.]
Alleyton CSA. Born as War clouds gathered. Alleyton was a key point on the supply line of the Confederate States of American during the Civil War. It was both beginning and end of the cotton road leading to the Confederacy's back door on the Rio Grande River. By 1860 the Buffalo Bayou, Brazos and Colorado Railroad extended from Harrisburg, near Houston, to Alleyton. As a railhead Alleyton became the site of an important cotton station and Quartermaster Depot during the War.
Cotton came here from north and east Texas. From Louisiana, and from Arkansas on the Rails of the B.B.B. & C. and via wagon roads. From Alleyton the South's most precious trading commodity was carried to a point on the Colorado River across from Columbus. It was then ferried across for the start of a long, tortuous journey to the Rio Grande.
The bales of cotton were hauled on big-bedded wagons and high-wheeled Mexican carts, pulled by mules, horses or oxen. The Cotton Road led to Goliad, San Patricio, the King Ranch and finally to Brownsville. Shreds of white fluff on bush and cactus marked the trail of the wagon trains. From Brownsville the cotton was taken across the river to Matamoros, Mexico and subsequently placed on board ships bound for Europe. As the only major gap in the Federal naval blockade of the Confederacy, neutral Matamoros was the place of exchange for outgoing cotton and imported munitions, clothing and medicine.
When Federal forces took Vicksburg in 1863 the Mississippi River was sealed off and the Confederacy divided. The Texas-Mexico trade routes became the South's major military supply lines in the trans-Mississippi west. Alleyton was a main destination of the wagon trains returning from the Rio Grande. Rifles, swords, shirts, pants, alum, arrowroot and other items needed by soldier and civilian in the harried Confederacy were unloaded here for new destinations.
- Historical Marker Text. Marker erected 1963. Located on FM 102, 2/10 mile south of IH-10 about four miles E of Columbus.
I found that highway marker at Alleyton years ago. Until then I had no idea of Alleyton's history or importance during the war.
I note that EternalVigilance's 1861 map in post 16 shows that rail line west of Houston.