Martinsburg Roundhouse

Martinsburg Roundhouse. Jackson and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. , In April 1861, as the Civil War erupted, Confederate forces seized the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad from Harpers Ferry west. On May 24, Gen. Joseph E. Johnston ordered Col. Thomas J. (later "Stonewall") Jackson to destroy the rolling stock here at Martinsburg, a Unionist stronghold. Jackson began his task on June 13, burning 300 cars and destroying 42 locomotives. "It was sad work," Jackson wrote his wife Anna, "but I had my orders and my duty was to obey." He dismantled a few of the locomotives, and 40-horse teams dragged them south up the Martinsburg and Winchester Turnpike and then along the Valley Turnpike to Strasburg, where the first engine was reassembled. Ironically, the track there was of a different width, so the locomotives could not be used in the Shenandoah Valley. Several were transported in pieces to Richmond, reassembled, and put to use. In Martinsburg, by the end of June, the roundhouse complex had been stripped of all the stationary equipment, tools, and a 40-foot turntable. The roundhouse and shops suffered only minor damage., Jackson returned to Martinsburg in October 1862, following the Battle of Antietam, Maryland. He was in the midst of destroying Baltimore and Ohio Railroad property, including twenty miles of track between Harpers Ferry and North Mountain. This time, not wanting to leave anything of use to the Federals, he ordered the roundhouse and all the shops burned. The roundhouse complex you see here now was constructed beginning in late 1865., (Captions):, Alfred Waud drawing of the ruined Martinsburg roundhouse. , Courtesy Library of Congress, Martinsburg roundhouse complex, ca. 1850s.- From Baltimore and Ohio Employees Magazine, October 1914., Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson , Courtesy National Archives