It was the _American Civil War_ that was to elevate railway destruction and restoration into a science and to see the establishment, in the interests of such science, of an organisation which was to become a model for European countries and influence the whole subsequent course of modern warfare. The destruction of railways likely to be used by the North for its projected invasion of the Confederate States was, from the first, a leading feature in the strategy of the South. Expeditions were undertaken and raids were made with no other object than that of burning down bridges, tearing up and bending rails, making bonfires of sleepers, wrecking stations, rendering engines, trucks and carriages unserviceable, cutting off the water supply for locomotives, or in various other ways seeking to check the advance of the Northerners. Later on the Federals, in turn, became no less energetic in resorting to similar tactics in order either to prevent pursuit by the Confederates or to interrupt their communications. For the carrying out of these destructive tactics use was generally made either of cavalry, accompanied by civilians, or of bodies of civilians only; but in some instances, when it was considered desirable to destroy lengths of track extending to twenty or thirty miles, or more, the Confederates put the whole of their available forces on to the work. At the outset the methods of destruction were somewhat primitive; but they were improved upon as the result of practice and experiment. Thus, in the first instance, timber bridges or viaducts were destroyed by collecting brushwood, placing this around the arches, pouring tar or petroleum upon the pile, and then setting fire to the whole. Afterwards the Federals made use of a "torpedo," eight inches long, and charged with gunpowder, which was inserted in a hole bored in the main timbers of the bridge and exploded with a fuse. It was claimed that with two or three men working at each span the largest timber bridge could be thrown down in a few minutes.