Burgaw Station

Burgaw Station, a stop on the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad, was located on the rail line known as the “Lifeline of the Confederacy,” Gen. Robert E. Lee’s main supply route for his Army of Northern Virginia by 1864. This rail line transported equipment and weapons smuggled through the Union naval blockade from Wilmington, North Carolina, to the front in Virginia. Trains sometimes stopped at Burgaw Station to get wood and water and pick up passengers and mail., The Burgaw Station was built about 1850 as part of an improvement project on what was then called the Wilmington and Raleigh Railroad (Wilmington and Weldon Railroad in 1855). William Shepperd Ashe, president of the railroad early in the war, was killed in a train accident while en route from Wilmington to his home four miles south of here. Col. Sewell L. Fremont, for whom Fremont Street in Burgaw was named, served as superintendent of the railroad by 1863., Federal cavalry raiders burned part of the depot in 1862-1863. After the Confederates evacuated Wilmington late in February 1865, Union prisoners of war were temporarily held here before being paroled on the rail line near the Northeast Cape Fear River as part of a general exchange program. During negotiations, the Burgaw depot telegraph connected Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg, headquartered nearby, to Richmond and Raleigh. Today Burgaw Station is one of only two remaining antebellum railroad stations in North Carolina (the other is Mitchener’s Station in Selma)., (captions) , (lower left) Prisoners awaiting exchange from Prison Life in the South (1866) , (lower center) Lt. Henry H. Willis, 40th New York Infantry, a Union prisoner held at Burgaw Station until paroled at Northeast Station 10 miles south of here. , Courtesy Chris E. Fonvielle, Jr. , (upper right) William Shepperd Ashe, from Biographical History of North Carolina (1905); Col. Sewell L. Fremont Courtesy Robert J. Cooke