| 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. |
|