| "On the 19th of June,
Colonel Jackson was sent with his brigade north of Martinsburg, to
observe the enemy, who were again crossing the Potomac. They retired
before him, evidently afraid to hazard a collision. On this expedition
Colonel Jackson was ordered by General Johnston to destroy the
locomotives and cars of the Baltimore Railroad at Martinsburg. At this
village there were vast workshops and depots for the construction and
repair of these cars; and more than forty of the finest locomotives,
with three hundred burdencars, were now destroyed. Concerning this he
writes: -- "It was a sad work; but I had my orders, and my duty
was to obey. If the cost of the property could only have been expended
in disseminating the gospel of the Prince of peace, how much good
might have been expected." |
| That this invaluable property
should have been withdrawn to Winchester by the way of Harper's Ferry,
before this point was evacuated, is too plain to be argued. Whose was
the blunder cannot now be ascertained; that it was not Colonel
Jackson's appears from the extract of his letter just inserted. The
bridges across the streams, between Martinsburg and Harper's Ferry,
were by this time burned. So desirable did it afterwards appear that
the railroads of the Confederate States should be recruited with the
remaining stock at Martinsburg, that a number of locomotives and
burden-cars were drawn along the turnpike roads by long teams of
horses to Winchester, and thence to the Central Virginia
Railroad." |
| The Preface to the book
"The Life and Commands of Lieutenant-General Thomas J.
Jackson" was signed April 1, 1866. The above quotation is from
pages 200 and 201. |
|