Herman Haupt (engineer)
Herman Haupt , sometimes also Hermann Haupt (born March 26, 1817 in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , † December 14, 1905 in Jersey City , New Jersey ) was an American railroad engineer and general in the US Army during the American Civil War .
biography
Life until the Civil War
Herman Haupt was born in Philadelphia in 1817 as the son of the trader Jacob Haupt and his wife Anna Margaretta Wiall Haupt. His father died when Haupt was twelve years old; his mother then had to take care of the five children from the marriage alone. Haupt had to finance his school attendance by accepting part-time work. At the age of 14 he was admitted to officer training by President Andrew Jackson at the Military Academy at West Point , which he successfully completed in 1835. Thereafter, served as a main Lt. in the infantry of the Army . He gave up this post on September 30, 1835 in order to be able to work as an engineer in the civil economy. He took a job with the Norristown Railroad , where he worked on the construction of tunnels and bridges. On August 30, 1838, he married Ann Cecilia Keller, with whom he would have eleven children. In 1839, Haupt patented a bridge construction he developed , which has become known as the Haupt Truss Bridge . Bridges constructed afterwards can still be seen in Altoona and Ardmore today.
From 1840 to 1847 main worked as a professor of mathematics and engineering at Pennsylvania College in Gettysburg . He then worked as a designer for the Pennsylvania Railroad and then from 1849 to 1851 as a chief engineer. Then he went to Mississippi until 1853 , where he was a chief engineer with the Southern Railroad. It followed from 1853 to 1856 the activity as chief engineer at the Pennsylvania Railroad. Here he was responsible for completing the route through the Alleghenys , with which a rail link to Pittsburgh was created through the Allegheny Tunnel . From 1856 to 1861, Haupt was chief engineer responsible for work on the Hoosac Tunnel in Massachusetts .
In the Civil War
When the US Department of War opened an office for the planning and maintenance of military railroads in the spring of 1862, Haupt was appointed its head on April 27, 1862 by Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton . In this position he held the rank of Colonel and was also aide-de-camp of Major General Irvin McDowell , who at the time commanded the defense systems of Washington, DC . Haupt dedicated himself to the repair and fortification of the war-damaged railroad lines in the Washington area. He had the railway workers armed and improved the telegraph connections that ran along the railway lines. One of the toughest jobs was repairing the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad . He succeeded in rebuilding the destroyed bridge over a tide-dependent arm of the Potomac (Potomac Creek) in just nine days. During a visit on May 29, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln was impressed by Haupt's work, on which he later noted: "This man, Haupt, built a four hundred foot long and one hundred foot high bridge over Potomac Creek, which is crossed by loaded trains every hour and which consists of nothing but corn stalks and bean stalks. "
On September 5, 1862, Haupt was promoted to Brigadier General. However, he officially refused the promotion, stating that he would be content to serve without official rank and salary so that his ability to pursue civilian business would not be affected. He didn't like the behavior and discipline in the army. Finally, Haupt was released from his duties on September 5, 1863 and discharged from the army on September 14, 1863. During his time as an officer in the US Army, Haupt played a large part in the Union's war effort. The Civil War was one of the first wars in which railroads were used to move troops quickly over long distances and to carry supplies. Haupt supported the Virginia Army and Potomac Army in the Northern Virginia Campaign and the Maryland Campaign. Haupt excelled in particular in supporting the Gettysburg campaign, which took place in an area with which he was familiar from his youth. With trains quickly assembled, Haupt made sure that the Potomac Army was always well supplied with supplies. These trains also took the wounded to hospitals in the hinterland. After the Battle of Gettysburg , Haupt went on one of his trains to Washington, where on July 6, 1863 he was the first to report to the President in the White House of the victory of the Union troops over the Confederates under Robert E. Lee and also to inform him that that George Gordon Meade did not vigorously pursue the defeated opponents.
After the Civil War
After leaving the army, Haupt returned to the railroad business and the construction of bridges, pipelines and tunnels. He and his wife bought a small hotel in Mountain Lake , Virginia . He also invented a drill, for which he received a British award from the Royal Polytechnic Society , and he succeeded in proving that transporting oil through pipes was practical.
From 1872 to 1876 was chief general manager of the Piedmont Air-Line Railroad from Richmond to Atlanta . He later served as general manager of the Northern Pacific Railroad from 1881 to 1885 and president of the Dakota and Great Southern Railroad from 1885 to 1886 . He made wealth by investing in railroad companies, mines, and property. However, Haupt lost a large part of his fortune through political entanglements in connection with the delay in the completion of the Hoosac Tunnel.
Herman Haupt died in Jersey City in 1905 at the age of 88. He suffered a heart attack while traveling in a Pullman car from New York to Pittsburgh by train . He was buried in West Laurel Hill Cemetery in Bala Cynwyd , Pennsylvania.
Memberships
Since 1871 he was a member of the American Philosophical Society .
Works written by Haupt (selection)
- Hints on Bridge Building , 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 , 1901
swell
- Eicher, John H., and Eicher, David J. , Civil War High Commands , Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3 .
- Main online biography
literature
- Frey, Robert L., ed., Railroads in the Nineteenth Century (Encyclopedia of American Business History and Biography) , New York: Facts on File, 1988, ISBN 978-0-8160-2012-6 .
- Ward, James A., That Man Haupt: A Biography of Herman Haupt , Louisiana State University Press, 1973, ISBN 978-0-8071-0225-1 .
- Karl-Eugen Kurrer : The History of the Theory of Structures. Searching for Equilibrium , Ernst & Sohn 2018, p. 48 and p. 1005, (biography). ISBN 978-3-433-03229-9
Web links
- Herman Main Truss Bridge
- Online biography
- Herman main in the database of Find a Grave (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Member History: Herman Haupt. American Philosophical Society, accessed September 24, 2018 .
See also
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Head, Herman |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Haupt, Hermann |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American Civil War general and railroad engineer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 26, 1817 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Philadelphia , Pennsylvania |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 14, 1905 |
| Place of death | Jersey City , New Jersey |