Jackson's Operations Against The B&O Railroad (1861) - Raid Controversy

Raid Controversy

Historian James I. Robertson Jr. in his biography of Stonewall Jackson calls the May 23 raid and the subterfuge engaged in by Jackson as "the most intriguing anecdote of the first weeks of the war." He states, however, that "John. D. Imboden manufactured it, Jackson biographer G. F. R. Henderson gave it credence, and writers over the past century have delighted in recounting it in detail." After reviewing the documentation for the raid, Robertson asserts:

"Delightful as the story is, it is totally fictional. Jackson could not have committed these actions on his own, and he had no orders to disrupt the B&O completely. The Confederate government would not have issued such a directive while making overtures of cooperation with Maryland. If such destruction had occurred, the Union government would have screamed in protest and initiated retribution. No such reactions are recorded. For Jackson to have severed the B&O would have been a large and direct act of war against civilian commerce. The struggle between North and South had not yet reached that stage. Jackson was under strict orders not to interrupt civilian life. Further, it is inconceivable that the B&O's brilliant and hard-working president, John W. Garrett, or its indefatigable master of transportation, William Prescott Smith, would not have immediately seen through such a transparent ploy... ."

On May 12, 1861 Lee wrote to Jackson, "I am concerned at the feeling evinced in Maryland, & fear it may extend to other points, besides opposite Sheperdstown. It will be necessary, to allay it, if possible to confine yourself to a strictly defensive course." In a May 22, 1861 letter to General Milledge L. Bonham at Manassas Junction, Lee further elaborated Virginia's policy, "But it is proper for me to state to you that the policy of the State at present is strictly defensive. No provocation for attack will therefore be given, but every attack resisted to the extent of your means."

Robertson writes that there is no record in the Official Records of this massive capture of railroad stock, although William Prescott Smith's personal records on the war do record a small seizure of a train of cars on May 14 in Harper's Ferry. In analyzing the way the Imboden "fable" has spread, Robertson states that both railroad historians and later general historians used it as their source in their own works. The works Robertson cites as examples are Hungerford's Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, Thomas Weber's The Northern Railroads in the Civil War, Angus James Johnson III's Virginia Railroads in the Civil War, Allen Tate's Stonewall Jackson: The Good Soldier, Burke Davis' They Called Him Stonewall,and Clifford Dowdey's The Land They Fought For.

Robertson writes of the reliability of Imboden as a source for information on the war:

"...Imboden’s postwar writings must be ignored in most instances or handled with extreme caution in the other cases. The impeccable Jed Hotchkiss in later years wrote of Imboden (whom he had known in prewar Staunton): 'I do not like to say that my friend is unreliable; and yet the truth of the matter is that his statements will not bear the tests of criticism. ... He writes from a confused memory and never takes the trouble of verifying his statements by a reference to documents.'"

Biographer Byron Farwell echoes Robertson's views, stating the Imboden story is, "A wonderful tale, it illustrates Jackson's aggressiveness. But it almost certainly never happened." He adds:

"The story of the captured locomotives was told by John Imboden, who said that he himself took part in the raid, but there are disturbing elements to his story. Such a dramatic event ought to have stimulated many accounts, as did the later transfer of the locomotives from Martinsburg to Strasburg. If it occurred, Jackson did not report it to Lee, and that would have been a direct violation of Jackson's orders not to disturb commerce and not to cross into Maryland unless it was absolutely necessary. The story is, however, repeated as gospel in every other biography.