Talk:Jackson's operations against the B&O Railroad (1861)/List of historians section

List of historians believing the locomotive raid true

The quantity and amount of sources supporting the historicity of the raid is quite large. This section summarizes the variety of sources backing the historicity of the raid. No one source has attempted to synthesize all the accounts in one publication.

Overview of sources

In addition to the historians Hungerford, Weber, Johnson, Tate, Davis and Dowdy, there are other historians who clearly relate many additional facets and details of the May/June 1861 activities against the B&O Railroad such as: Robert Black, Gary Browne, Jedediah Hotchkiss, Edward Burns, Arthur Candenquist, Clement Evans, and John Stover who all also give historical credence to this whole affair    , and this is fairly well corroborated      by many primary sources such as diaries, news articles illustrations in Harper's Weekly at the time of the bridges being destroyed, box cars and a locomotive dumped in the river, and a railyard full of locomotives being dismantled at Martinsburg.

The records of the B&O Railroad in their annual report of 1861 from John W. Garrett, President of the B&O Railroad, go into details about the raid that John Imboden was not aware of, and very closely match the dates of railroad closure and quantities of items taken. The detailed annual report was issued during the war, some 36 years before Imboden relayed his rather small and general story.

Perhaps the most enlightening source contradicting Robertson's "totally fiction" assement is the personal story of Mr. J. E. Duke, the enlisted quartermaster assistant to Captain Thomas Sharp. Duke's story was published in 1898, the same year Henderson's biography of Jackson was published. Duke's story picks up where the "railroad corps", as he calls it, began the arduous job of trying to dismantle all the captured bounty and get it moved onto southern railways for Confederate service.

Finally, four other eyewitness accounts are listed for this article, William Prescott Smith (B&O Chief of Transportation), Julia Chase (pro-Unionist diarist in Winchester), Charles Keefer (assistant wagoneer for the raid) and Joseph Crawn (resident on the Valley Pike at Mount Crawford, Virginia).

Details beyond Imboden's account

For instance, a 1933 interview of Joseph Crawn, per Candenquist, is an example documenting the sighting by Valley citizens of the rolling stock being moved to Staunton, Virginia which Imboden did not mention. Elsewhere John Garrett, in Stover, gave detailed accounts in the B&O report of the summaries of destruction that Imboden did not know. As yet another example, Browne notes the specific types of locomotives taken as being a Hayes Camel, a Mason, and Dutch Wagon engines, yet more details Imboden did not give. Browne is also an example of aftermath details, like Garrett hiring Captain Sharp when his Chief of Transportation, William Prescott Smith, died in 1872. Even Weber, who is accused by Robertson of merely passing on the first-hand accounts of Imboden adds that 42 locomotives and 386 railcars were the specific quantities of rolling stock destroyed. Yet in Imbodens account he maintains that "I do not remember the number of trains captured, but the loss crippled the Baltimore and Ohio road seriously for some time ..." John Garrett, one of the primary sources that the operation/affair begain in May of 1861, provides that time frame when he notes that by the 28th of May "general possession" had now been taken of up to "one hundred miles of the Main Stem" and that the line was not reopened until March 29, 1862. Yet Imboden did not mention the timeframe, and is not the source for that information, further demonstrating that various historians are getting their information from sources other than Imboden. This May timeframe for the start of activities has been the position in documentation on the B&O Railroad ever since, and corroborates Colonel Henderson's view that the affair was in play by at least May 24, 1861. Finally Shriver's article of the story of J.E. Duke, assistant to Captain Sharp, doesn't even bother or attempt to explain how, why or when all the locomotives came to be in Martinsburg, but rather focuses on the amazing feats involved in moving what he claims were a total of 19, rather than 14 locomotives by total count, and leaving one behing sitting on the Winchester-Martinsburg turnpike for the entire duration of the war. One key thing though that Mr. Duke does state is that the real brains behind the entire operation, and the real credit deserved is with Captain Sharp. He says "It is generally conceded that the idea of taking the Baltimore and Ohio stock originated with ... Thomas R. Sharp."

Current sources maintaining historicity

CSX Corporation, Inc., the current owner of the railroad also confirms the May 1861 raid in their own history published online at their http://www.csx.com website.

Additionally controversy was added when, two years after Robertson published his book in 1997, artist Mort Kunstler began a three-painting series on the supposedly non-existent raid with his paintings Iron Horses, Men of Steel painted in 1999 depicting the forty-horse carriage and dolly teams conscripted for the "arduous movement" which began through Winchester in June of 1861 and Jackson Commandeers the Railroad which depicts the disassembling of locomotives occuring in Martinsburg, also in June of 1861.

Government backing of historicity

The U.S. Governments National Park Service, too, has determined that a raid took place noting

Thomas Sharp, unknown by Imboden

The key figure in the raid, Capt Thomas Sharp,, was later so greatly admired by John Garrett of the B&O Railroad (see quotation in the previous section), who spoke with personal knowledge of the raid, that Capt Sharp was hired as the chief engineer for the railroad, and served in that capacity for many years after the war. Robertson's opinion that Jackson's actions were acts of war on commerce before the war started fail to understand and account for the fact that Virginia seceded by popular vote on May 23, 1861, which was the key trigger for the initial operation and complete severing of the B&O Railroad.

Summarization and synthesize of 34 corroborating sources to date

An overview of all the sources easily confirms that the rather vague account given by Imboden is by no means the only source of information, who was not even able to provide information on how many rolling stock were taken, when the raid occurred, what the destination of the bounty was, or who the main agent, Captain Thomas Sharp, was. This table provides a brief summary of the pieces of the whole affair which ran from late May of 1861 and did not complete until as late as August of 1863, when the last of the eyewitness accounts reports the last and final movements of rolling stock that had been hidden in barns and other locations throughout the Shenandoah Valley for more than two years. Thirty four known historians and sources, with some writings dating to within 37 years of the events (Henderson), corroborate each other and confirm the records of the B&O Railroad, CSX Corporation, Inc. and wartime correspondance of Harper's Weekly and various other newspapers at the time. The compilation of the centennial history of the B&O Railroad by Edward Hungerford is particularly damaging to Robertson's theory that Imboden is the primary source of inventing the raid, as the B&O Railroad maintained meticulous details and accounts of every engine locomotive by number, accounted for exact numbers of rails taken by the Confederates, and filed extensive, detailed and enumerated claims to the U.S. Government starting in March of 1862 for claims against actions and theft of any assets by both the U.S. and Confederate forces.