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, soon 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 up the Martinsburg and Winchester Turnpike and then
along the Valley Turnpike to Strasbourg, 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, follow
ing 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 late in 1865.
Marker is on East Race Street east of North Spring Street, on the left when traveling east.
Courtesy hmdb.org
