B17, JJ xx/xx/1874

   As the intelligence obtained from Maryland indicated that General Patterson was preparing to cross the Potomac again, Colonel Jackson was sent with his brigade to the vicinity of Martinsburg to support the cavalry. He was instructed also to protect and aid an agent of the Government, appointed for the work, in removing such of the rolling-stock of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad as he might select for the use of the Confederacy, or as much of it as practicable. It was to be transported to the railroad at Strasburg, on the turnpike through Winchester. The orders of the Government required the destruction of all that could not be brought away.
   It has been said somewhat hastily, and I think harshly, that those who had the power to seize and remove this property committed a gross blunder by failing to send it to Winchester by railroad from Harper's Ferry before the evacuation of that place. The charge falls upon the Executives of the State and of the Confederacy, and the military commanders, General Jackson and myself. I presume that all were governed by the same considerations -- those that directed my course. It would have been criminal as well as impolitic on our part to commit such an act of war against the citizens of Maryland, when we were receiving aid from the State then, and hoping for its accession to the Confederacy. The seizure of that property by us could have been justified only by the probability of its military use by the enemy. Such a probability did not appear, of course, until after our evacuation of Harper's Ferry. Besides, at the time in question, the Winchester {& Potomac} Railroad and its rolling-stock were required exclusively for the transportation of property far more valuable to the Confederacy than engines and cars -- the machinery of the armory. There was another cogent reason, the engines of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad were too heavy for use on the other, or even to pass over it, especially near the Shenandoah, where it rests on trestles. While at Harper's Ferry I was prevented from attempting to use them in the removal of the machinery by the remonstrances of the engineers of both roads, founded on their opinions that the heavier engines of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad would crush the trestle-work of the Winchester road if brought upon it.

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