o
maintain the regular service of trains, including the mails. For this
privilege, however, Jackson exacted toll. The Confederate railways
were deficient in rolling stock, and he determined to effect a large
transfer from the Baltimore and Ohio. From Point of Rocks, twelve
miles east of Harper's Ferry, to Martinsburg, fifteen miles west, the
line was double. "The coal traffic along it," says General Imboden,
"was immense, for the Washington Government was accumulating supplies
of coal on the seaboard. These coal trains passed Harper's Ferry at
all hours of the day and night, and thus furnished Jackson with a
pretext for arranging a brilliant capture. A detachment was posted at
Point of Rocks, and the 5th Virginia Infantry at Martinsburg. He then
complained to the President of the Baltimore and Ohio that the night
trains, eastward bound, disturbed the repose of his camp, and
requested a change of schedule that would pass all east-bound trains
by Harper's Ferry between eleven and one o'clock in the daytime. The
request was complied with, and thereafter for several days was heard
the constant roar of passing trains for an hour before and an hour
after noon. But since the "empties" were sent up the road at night,
Jackson again complained that the nuisance was as great as ever, and,
as the road had two tracks, said he must insist that the west-bound
trains should pass during the same hour as those going east. Again he
was obliged, and we then had, for two hours every day, the liveliest
railroad in America.

"One night, as soon as the schedule was working at its best, Jackson
instructed the officer commanding at Point of Rocks to take a force
of men across to the Maryland side of the river the next day at
eleven o'clock, and letting all west-bound trains pass till twelve
o'clock, to permit none to go east. He ordered the reverse to be done
at Martinsburg.

"Thus he caught all the trains that were going east or west between
these points, and ran them up to Winchester, thirty-two miles on the
branch line, whence they were removed by horse power to the railway
at Strasburg, eighteen miles further south."* (* Battles and Leaders
volume 1.)

May 24.

This capture was Jackson's only exploit whilst in command at Harper's
Ferry. On May 24 he was relieved by General Joseph E. Johnston, one
of the senior officers of the Confederate army. The transfer of
authority was not, however, at once effected. Johnston reached
Harper's Ferr