. History of the Army of the Cumberland: Its Organization, Campaigns, and Battles, Written at the Request of Major-General George H. Thomas Chiefly from His Private Military Journal and Official and Other Documents Furnished by Him, by Thomas B. Van Horne ; Illustrated with Campaign and Battle Maps, Compiled by Edward Ruger V 2 . Fig. 4. Elevation op Octagonal Block-house, Bank removed from inFront of Fig. 5. Plan of Octagonal Block-house with Tower. can always be concentrated on the diagonal through their in-tersection ; the former weak points are thus made the strong-est. I would


. History of the Army of the Cumberland: Its Organization, Campaigns, and Battles, Written at the Request of Major-General George H. Thomas Chiefly from His Private Military Journal and Official and Other Documents Furnished by Him, by Thomas B. Van Horne ; Illustrated with Campaign and Battle Maps, Compiled by Edward Ruger V 2 . Fig. 4. Elevation op Octagonal Block-house, Bank removed from inFront of Fig. 5. Plan of Octagonal Block-house with Tower. can always be concentrated on the diagonal through their in-tersection ; the former weak points are thus made the strong-est. I would therefore earnestly advise the use of octagonal 446 APPENDIX. block-houses for railroad defense. So much time was con-sumed in making mortises and tenons, that I would advise forfuture block-houses a greater simplicity of joints and the lib-eral use of spikes, abolishing, as far as possible, all work re-quiring skilled labor. Spikes answered admirably on theKentucky Central block-houses, but I was induced to trytenons in Tennessee, on account of having skilled labor avail-able. I am now satisfied that the first method of construc-tion was greatly preferable. As a rule, the small railroad bridges had one block-house,and the larger ones two, on opposite sides of the track. Atthe very high and long trestle-work across the Running Watergorge at Whiteside, four small block-houses were built. Forthe protection


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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, bookpublishercinci, bookyear1875