A Civil Engineer Smooths the Union Rails

(NYTimes) “That man Haupt has built a bridge across Potomac Creek, about 400 feet long and nearly 100 feet high, over which loaded trains are running every hour,” declared President Abraham Lincoln on May 23, 1862, “and, upon my word, gentlemen, there is nothing in it but beanpoles and cornstalks!”
Even more remarkable was the fact that Herman Haupt and his crew completed the work in only nine days: May 6-15, 1862; the original bridge took nine months to build. Who was “that man Haupt”? Continued