Sherman’s Neckties, also known as Sherman’s Bowties, Jeff Davis’s Neckties, and Sherman’s Hairpins, were tactics employed by the Union Army during the American Civil War to sabotage railroad operations. Named after Major General William Tecumseh Sherman, who came up with them, these methods aimed to undermine the Confederacy’s strategic and economic foundations by targeting its railway infrastructure directly.
The Union Army needed to slow down the Confederates
As the Civil War approached its conclusion, the Union sought a method to cripple the Confederates, identifying their vulnerable point in the form of limited iron supplies and foundries. In the summer of 1864 during the Atlanta Campaign, Sherman issued orders for the Union Army to focus on dismantling the enemy’s rail systems to sever Confederate troops from their crucial supply lines.
The directive, issued on July 18, 1864, stated:
“In case of the sounds of serious battle he will close in on General Schofield, but otherwise will keep every man of his command at work in destroying the railroad by tearing up track, burning the ties and iron, and twisting the bars when hot. Officers should be instructed that bars simply bent may be used again, but if when red hot they are twisted out of line they cannot be used again.
“Pile to ties into shape for a bonfire, put the rails across, and when red hot in the middle, let a man at each end twist the bar so that its surface become spiral. General McPherson will dispatch General Garrard’s cavalry eastward along the line of the railroad to continue the destruction as far as deemed prudent.”
This marked the initiation of Sherman’s Neckties. After a mere three days, all but one railroad line in Atlanta had been effectively dismantled.
The first way to make Sherman’s Neckties
Merely tearing up the railroad tracks did not sufficiently disrupt Confederate supply lines. After Union forces removed them, they were unable to extract the rails entirely, which allowed the Confederates to easily put them back in place.
To solve this problem, Sherman instructed his troops to remove the tracks by lifting them off the ties and positioning them vertically across a bonfire. As the rails heated, their own weight caused the pliable metal to warp. Despite this, the technique was not universally effective, as it only partially deformed the rails. With dedicated effort, Confederate troops could straighten the rails and quickly restore the tracks to their original state.
The second way to make Sherman’s Neckties
Instead, the soldiers on the ground devised a more effective method for twisting the rails, rendering them completely unusable. Using the heat from a bonfire, they would heat the rail until it was red-hot and then twist it around a tree, bending it enough so that the ends overlapped.
As these twisted rails remained on the trees, they came to be called Sherman’s Neckties. The Confederates lacked both the foundry capacity to melt down all the rails and the manpower to lay new tracks.
Meridian Campaign of 1864
The town of Meridian, situated in eastern Mississippi, held a lot of strategic value for the Confederate Army due to its intersection of three vital railroads and its role as a hub for storing and distributing agricultural goods for Southern military operations.
Recognizing Meridian’s importance, Sherman aimed to intercept and destroy Confederate access to these railroads. By achieving this objective, Union forces could effectively limit Confederate mobility as they advanced towards the Mississippi River during their March to the Sea Campaign.
On February 3, 1864, Union troops started the campaign “to break up the enemy’s railroads at and about Meridian, and to do the enemy as much damage as possible in the month of February, and to be prepared by the 1st of March to assist General [Nathaniel] Banks in a similar dash at the Red River country.”
The Impact of Sherman’s Neckties
When Sherman’s men arrived in Meridian on February 14, they immediately began prying up the railroad tracks, leaving only Sherman’s Neckties in their wake. They completed their objective and returned to Vicksburg by March 6. It took the Confederates 26 days to restore the rails.
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The sabotage put the South’s rail lines out of commission for nearly a month, critically impacting their position in the war and proving that Sherman’s Neckties were an effective tactic.