In addition, just before the war broke out, Abraham Lincoln became the country's 16th President. With the routing chosen Congress passed the Pacific Railroad Act of 1862, signed into law by President Lincoln on July 1, 1862. Union Pacific DDA40X "Centennial" #6913 and an SD40-2 lead tra...
The bulk of these funds were eventually provided by the U.S. government, which under the terms of the railroad acts of 1862 and 1864 agreed to loan to Central Pacific a varying amount of government bonds for every mile of road built, depending on the difficulty of terrain traversed, and t...
Union Pacific Railroad Company, company that extended the American railway system to the Pacific Coast; it was incorporated by an act of the U.S. Congress on July 1, 1862. The original rail line was built westward 1,006 miles (1,619 km) from Omaha, Nebraska, to meet the Central Pacific...
Commissioned commodore in 1862, he commanded a squadron sent to the West Indies to protect U.S. commerce there. His actions brought protests of neutrality violations from several foreign governments, and he was court-martialled in 1864 for insubordination and conduct unbecoming an officer and ...