to help with supplies for the Siege of Petersburg, knowing from past experience that it would be needed. Grant empowered Mr. C. L. McAlpine, engineer of construction and repairs, to rebuild the City Point to Petersburg Railroad, as soon as the fighting moved elsewhere. McAlpine commenced operations when he arrived on June 18, 1864. The City Point Railroad portion of the Southside Railroad was of great value to the Union forces during the Siege of Petersburg in 1864-65. General Grant used and extended it to move supplies and troops from the port at City Point to the area south and east of Petersburg, operating it as a U.S. Military Railroad. In the last year of the Civil War, the U.S. Government rebuilt ten miles of tracks, a hospital and a bakery on the Southside Railroad and rebuilt trestle bridges. Stations & Waypoints of the Military railroad City Point Terminus (Mile 0) Hospital spur (Mile 1.5) Wood Pile (Mile 2) Cedar Level Station (Mile 4) Clark's Station (Mile 4.25) Pitkin's Junction (Mile 5.75) Birney's Station (Mile 7) Meade's Station (Mile 8) "Shooting Hill" (Mile 9) Hancock's Junction/Jerusalem Plank Road (Mile 11) Gregg's Station (Mile 12 S) Crawford's Station Terminus (Mile 13.5 S) Parke's Station (Mile 13 N) Warren's Junction/Weldon Railroad (Mile 14.5 N) Patrick's Station Terminus (Mile 16 N) Humphreys Station Terminus (Mile 18.5 S) Merger into the Atlantic, Mississippi, and Ohio Railroad After the War, the stockholders of the Southside Railroad elected former Major General (CSA) William Mahone, chief engineer on the Norfolk and Petersburg Railroad, as president of their road. He had some fame from his part in the Battle of the Crater. In the post-war years, William Mahone became the driving force in the linkage of N&P, Southside Railroad and the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad. He was president of all three by the end of 1867. Mahone wanted to combine them into a single entity and expand westward. He lobbied the Virginia General Assembly to gain the legislation necessary to form the Atlantic, Mississippi & Ohio Railroad (AM&O), a new line composed of the 3 railroads he headed, extending 408 miles from Norfolk to Bristol, Virginia in 1870. The former Southside Railroad formed one of three original A, M & O divisions. Southside Railroad today The former Southside Railroad formed a major piece of the Norfolk and Western used to transport bituminous coal from the mines in southwestern