Stealing A Railroad

(No author identified)

(Published in American Thresherman, May, 1907, pp 82-83)

   In June, 1861, the Confederate forces, under General Joseph E. Johnson, had control of a portion of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, near Harper’s Ferry. This road was of standard gauge and well equipped with rolling stock which the South sorely needed. At Martinsburg, only thirty-eight miles from the nearest Southern railroad and but eighteen miles from Winchester, then in possession of the Confederates, were roundhouses and shops filled with engines and cars. To raid these shops and transport the spoils to safety was the idea which Colonel Sharp conceived. How the details were worked out is thus related.

   Everything having been previously arranged, the forces selected to do this work, consisting of about thirty-five men, including six machinists, detailed from the ranks, ten teamsters and about a dozen laborers, left Winchester before daybreak and proceeded by the pike to Martinsburg. They were under the immediate charge of Hugh Longust, and experienced railroad man from Richmond. Forty horses, hired, and, where necessary, impressed from the farmers in the rich valley, and in some cases driven by their well-to-do owners, formed a highly picturesque, feature of the expedition. They were to furnish the motive power. Fine specimens of horseflesh they were: big, brawny-limbed, well-fed, and in the very pink of condition for draught work. They would need all their strength before the day was over, for there were some troublesome hills along the route over which the ponderous iron horses were to be pulled. Upon arrival at Martinsburg, Mr. Longust, a swarthy, wiry little man, looked about him until his eye fell upon a big locomotive standing on a side track near the roundhouse.

   “That’s the fellow we’ve got to begin on. Go in, boys!” he shouted.

   And then the skilled men and laborers began to work, using all expedition possible, for no one could say how soon they might be interrupted by the enemy. First, the tender was uncoupled, then the engine was raised by means of jackscrews and stripped of all the parts that could be removed, such as side and piston rods, valves, levers, lamps, bell, whistle and sandbox. All the wheels were taken off except the flange drivers at the rear. The stripping was done to lighten weight, secure greater ease in handling, and for the better preservation of the running gear.

   When this work had been completed, what had a few minutes before been a splendid iron Pegasus was a helpless, inert mass; a mere shell, deformed and crippled, and ready to submit to any indignity, even to that of being hauled over a country road by the flesh and blood horses whose office it had so long usurped. The next step was to swing the prize around until it hung poised in the air at right angles with the tracks, and to replace the missing forward wheels with a heavy truck, made especially for the purpose, furnished with iron-shod wooden wheels and fastened to the engine’s bumper by an iron bolt serving as a linch pin. When the jacks were removed the engine rested on the flange drivers and the wheels of the truck. A powerful chain formed the connecting link between the locomotive and the team of horses. This chain was fastened to the single, double and “fou’ble” trees, by means of which the horses pulled. The arrangement was very ingenious and insured steady and united effort. The horses went four abreast, and the forty, when strung along in pulling position, covered the entire width of the road and over one hundred feet of its length. Probably no similar team had ever before been seen on an American road.

   When all was in readiness a teamster mounted an end horse of each line of four, Longust gave the signal, the crack of ten whips rang out and the locomotive’s novel trip was begun. The offstart was merry and inspiring enough to such of the townspeople as happened to be in sympathy with the movement, and to the small boy, who was, as usual, present in force, it was an event keenly enjoyed and long to be remembered, an experience to be treasured along with that of donning his initial pair of long trousers; but to the sturdy band of workers who had the prize in charge the trip was anything but a holiday jaunt.

   The time made varied according to the state of the weather and the roads, the condition of the teams and various other causes. Sometimes the whole distance to Winchester, eighteen miles, was made in a single day, while at others only three or four miles would be covered in the same time. The average time of the entire trip was three days to Strasburg, thirty-eight miles south of Martinsburg. Often the macadam covering the road would break through under the unwonted weight and let the iron monster down into the soft earth. Then there was hustling. The indispensable jackscrews came into use, and timbers were placed under the wheels, until, after perhaps an hour’s work, a fresh start could be made. On levels, where there was good, solid road, and all went well, the team proceeded at a fast walk; up the hills they generally went faster, because it was only by a good running start that they could get to the top at all. As it was, the big horses had to strain every muscle in ascending the grades.

   Before the first trip was made a prospecting party went over the route and examined the bridges on the line of the pike. In most instances these were not equal to supporting a heavy locomotive, and it was necessary to go into the woods, cut timber and strengthen them for the unusual burden.

   One of the hardest problems to solve was that of regulating the speed in descending hills. Just what the cyclist does for his wheel with his little spoon-shaped brake the men in charge of the locomotive did for that unwieldy mass of iron, for had it once got beyond control on a sharp down grade, nothing could have saved the horses or anything else that happened to be in the way. After considerable experiment and thought, the all-powerful jackscrew was again called into requisition and used as a brake, being fastened to the engine frame and placed sidewise against the drive wheel and tightened or loosened as the necessity arose by a man who rode on the engine. It is hardly needful to add that this man’s position was no sinecure.

   The tenders were transported in the same manner as the engines, eight horses being employed to the team. Cars were not so much in demand as engines, but a number of these were taken in the same manner. They were not only used afterward for transporting war supplies on the Southern roads, but served the immediate purpose of carrying the detached portions of the locomotives.

   When the engines reached Strasburg they were placed on the tracks of the Manassas Gap road, which had the same gauge as the Baltimore and Ohio – five feet eight and a half inches – by the process employed in taking them from the rails at Martinsburg, and the tenders having been attached, they were hauled, by means of other steam power, over the road mentioned and the Orange and Alexandria and Virginia Central roads to Richmond, the detached parts remaining in the cars. At Richmond they were assembled and kept until all had been brought from the line of the Baltimore and Ohio. Nearly a year was occupied in conveying the seized locomotives, nineteen in all, from the Baltimore and Ohio to Richmond, most of them coming from Martinsburg, though a few were taken from Harper’s Ferry and Duffeld’s. The reason so long a period was covered in the collection of the seized stock was that the Baltimore and Ohio road was not continuously in the possession of the Confederates. Sometimes, by the fortunes of war, they were driven south of the Potomac, and when, perhaps, after months of skirmishing, they regained the lost ground, the interrupted work of conveying the rolling stock was patiently and systematically resumed. Two or three of the locomotives which were started out of Martinsburg on the pike never got to Winchester, the Union forces having suddenly appeared upon the scene and driven off the party engaged in hauling them. The attempt to convey them to Strasburg was never renewed and they stood by the pike between Martinsburg and Winchester until recovered by the Baltimore and Ohio people at the close of the war, somewhat the worse for their exposure to the elements, but still capable, after repairs, of doing good service.

   Some of the engines were the long, lean freight haulers of the day; some were passenger locomotives, but the majority were of the now vanished “camelback” type, designed by Ross Winans of Baltimore. These “camelbacks” were sturdy pullers and did excellent service in their time, but they were marvels of ugliness.