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An Analysis of the 1862 M&O Railroad and Other Antebellum Payroll Records
Andrew D. Sharp,
Spring Hill College
Gary John Previts, Case Western Reserve University
Dale L. Flesher, University of Mississippi
ABSTRACT. This paper analyzes the payroll records of the Mobile and Ohio (M&O) Railroad for 1862. The construction labor for the M&O was supplied by planters from plantation labor pools--namely the slave population. Because of the availability of this plantation labor pool, the M&O did not have to purchase large numbers of slaves to construct the Road. Instead, the Company leased Negroes from the planters to build the railed road. This study assists in providing accounting and business scholars with evidence in evaluating the potential that labor from plantation sources represented as a supply for industrial and major construction work as large scale enterprises began to appear prior to and during the War Between the States.
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