Train Heist

Train Heist. "Iron Monsters" in Strasburg. Standing here throughout the summer of 1861, you would have witnessed extraordinary sights and heard the sound of pounding hooves and wooden wheels groaning under the weight of steel as horses pulled hundreds of tons of locomotives and railroad cars into Strasburg. Confederate troops had captured the rolling stock from the Baltimore and Ohio line in the vicinity of Harpers Ferry and moved it to Martinsburg, W.Va., The facts of what exactly happened here are murky, but what is known is that Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson, concerned with the South's shortage of trains, ordered some of the stock hauled overland 40 miles down the Valley Turnpike, today's Route 11, to Strasburg. Here, they could begin the journey to Richmond via the Manassas Gap Railroad. Confederate Capt. Thomas Sharp's hand-picked "railroad corps" wrestled 14 locomotives and almost 100 cars to Strasburg., Some of the locomotives were damaged, and they were sent to North Carolina for repair. All of them were in Confederate service by 1863., (sidebar) , "Iron Monster" , On September 16, 1861, Winchester diarist Julia Chase saw one of the locomotives bound for Strasburg dragged by her window. She wrote that it was pulled by "32 horses....it was quite a sight as it passed by , looking very much like an iron monster." Thirteen of the 14 locomotives brought to Strasburg were recovered after the Civil War and returned to service by the B&O, included Engine 199, pictured here. Courtesy West Virginia and Regional History Collection, West Virginia University Libraries., (caption) By 1854, railroads extended from Strasburg to Washington, D.C. The connection to the U.S. capital and its intersection with the Valley Turnpike (Route 11) made Strasburg a strategic location during the Civil War. Courtesy Library of Congress