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Show There have been various stories written about the stealing of the Baltimore Bal-timore and Ohio Rail Road engines at Martinsburg, W. Va., during the rebellion and their transfer across the country for service on southern railroads rail-roads by Col. Thomas Sharp, who Is still living in Ohio. Recently, an official of-ficial of the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road made some Inquiries of old employes em-ployes who were at Martinsburg at the time the incident happened and they say that on June 19, 1861, 200 men of Gen'l Stonewall Jackson's command were detailed to destroy the Balticsnre and Ohio's equipment at Martinsburg. They piled wood and coal over 41 engines and nearly 400 cars and then set fire to them. Only ten or twelve of the engines, however, were seriously damaged, and these not by the fire, but because the water was first let out of the boilers. Col. Sharp arrived in Martinsburg on August 18, 1861, and remained there until the following fol-lowing March, engaged in removing engines, machinery, etc. He took eight engines across the country over the turnpike, either to Staunton, Winchester Win-chester or Strasburg, (and there are some historians who disagree on this point) 32 horses being required to haul each engine. He also removed all the duplicate parts of engines and cars and all the rough iron at the station, and took away all machinery and tools which were afterward used in the Southern arsenals. The country around Martinsburg is extremely hilly and the work of getting the engines over the country roads required considerable engineering ability. It has been currently cur-rently reported in late years that one of the locomotives was the Winana camel-back No. 99 which at that time was numbered 77, but Col. Sharp did not care for this class of engines and took only ten wheel and passenger engines. en-gines. There was only one eight wheel locomotive taken and that was No. 34. Some years after the war Col. Sharp was employed on the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road as Master of Transportation. |