More eyewitness accounts of the battle of Green Springs Depot
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More information on the battle of Green Springs Depot on another website
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Permission granted by Patrick H. Stakem via e-mail to use this material on Korns.org
Armored Train in the Civil War
One of the first uses of armored trains occurred east of Cumberland in August of 1864. Although armored trains would be refined and used in the siege of Paris (1870) and both World Wars, the fledgling efforts of the B&O represent pioneering efforts.
Information on the armored train, and the engagement it fought is scarce and sketchy. The following is excerpted from Daniel Carroll Toomey's The Civil War in Maryland, 1983, Baltimore, MD.
The battle of Folck's Mill had been fought on August 1, 1864, just east of Cumberland. A confederate raid was successfully repulsed. The confederate forces then turned south to cross the Potomac near Old Town. They found the bridges burned, and union forces emplaced. Confederate forces involved were the Eighth Virginia Regiment, the Twenty-seventh Virginia Battalion, and the Baltimore Light Artillery, under General McCausland, and General Johnson.
Defending were the 153 Ohio National Guard, under Colonel Strough. Outnumbered, they crossed the Potomac to the safety of a blockhouse built to protect the railroad, in Green Spring, West Virginia. The blockhouses were timber construction, built at strategic locations along the B&O. See Roberts' East End.
Some of the Ohio troops climbed on a B&O train, and headed west towards Cumberland.
The armored train in support was an ad-hoc affair, consisting of "iron-clad railroad batteries containing three guns each, and four musket proof boxcars with loop holes for riflemen. Manning the train was a detachment of Company K, 2nd Regiment, Potomac Home Brigade, under Captain Peter B. Petrie."
Confederate gunner George McElwee of the Baltimore Light Artillery sent his first shot through the locomotive boiler, disabling the train. He then disabled an artillery piece on one of the gun cars with his second shot. With the train disabled, the crew and soldiers bailed out. McElwee was certainly the primier anti-armor gunner of his day. The blockhouse surrendered to the Confederate forces. The confederates parolled the union forces, and sent the wounded off on a handcar. The blockhouse and train were destroyed.
The following is from The Cumberland Times, December 13, 1953, J. William Hunt's Column, Across the Desk.
"Two cars stood on the B&O siding. One was covered with steel rails as armored protection and was equipped with a small cannon. The other car had loopholes and was manned by soldiers on the alert for raiders."
"A garrison of Ohio volunteers stationed at Green Spring, re-enforced by an armored railroad car that served as a mobile fort, disrupted McCausland's attempt to reach the railroad from the Maryland side."
From Festus Summers, "The Baltimore and Ohio in the Civil War":
"Finally as a fitting complement to these miniature forts, armored cars were designed and put in general use in 1863. They were box cars covered or lined with thick iron sheeting and equipped with ordinary service cannon."
This references the Official Records of the B&O, I, Vol XXXVII, pt. 1, pp. 355-356. Probably available at the B&O Museum, Mt. Clare, Baltimore, MD.
This fanciful representation [image not available, link deleted] which doesn't follow any of the descriptions, is from Harper's Weekly, 1863.
Eyewitness to the Armored Train Affair
Patrick H. Stakem, Chapter Historian
In the year 2000 issue of the Journal of the Alleghenies (Vol. XXXVI-2000) there is part I of "The Deffinbaugh Memories," a Memoir written in the 1920's by a Benjamin Deffinbaugh. The family settled in the Oldtown area with the Cresaps, as possibly one of the earliest European settlers in the area. Ben was a boy during the civil war, and not only an acute observer, but a great journalist. He talks about the details of every day life, going to Cumberland on the canal with his father, the prices of materials, etc. He saw and wrote about the armored train engagement at Oldtown, and the blockhouses built to protect the B&O's bridges. Details on the armored train and its uses are scarce.
He first notes, "...as a force of Confederate troops under Gen. Imboden were getting ready to break the iron railroad bridge down with heavy artillery...They planted a gun with a range at right angles to the bridge and cut the beams as if they were soft pinewood with solid shot, and at the eleventh shot the bridge fell with a terrific crash." This happened in July 1863.
He goes on to say, "A party of Confederates were detailed to destroy the track and telegraph line that skirted the farm from one end to the other and [they] were busily engaged in this work but were surprised by a regiment of Federals stationed at PawPaw, a few miles below, under the command of Captain Petrie. These troops were loaded on flat cars with an iron clad ["tent"] attached, which was constructed from rails taken from the road and made in this shape A and mounted on car wheels with an eighteen pound piece of artillery within. All this came around the point of the mountain very quietly, until they came in range of the Confederates who were so very busy at their work that the Federals were almost on them before they were observed."
"It was when the southern generals, McCausland and Bradley Johnson made their expedition thru western Md and Pa. In the last year of the War [that] the above-mentioned ironclad was put out of commission by what is said to have been two of the best artillery shots of the War. As near as I can judge the distance across the river from the Hill where the battery was in position at the lowest guess is close on to a mile distance. The battery was located on the hill at Oldtown where Capt. Michael Cresap built the stone house which was standing at the time. The artilleryman who sighted the gun was certainly master of his trade. The first shot went thru the boiler of the locomotive and put it out of commission. The second shell went thru the port hole of the ironclad and exploded, with the result that this creation of Yankee ingenuity was scattered all over the landscape. In cleaning up the field to make ready for the plow, I helped to gather up the chunks of iron, and especially I remember the shelter of the port hole, which was a heavy, solid piece of iron. Several of the crew of this war machine were killed and wounded."
Thank you, Benjamin Deffinbaugh. Chance put you there, but you followed through with a description for the rest of us.
There is also a nice section in:
Fritz Haselburger, Confederate Retaliation McCausand's 1864 Raid, 2000, ISBN 1-57249-113-2, Burd St. Press. Appendix B covers the armored trains.
Updated 11/24/2000
More eyewitness accounts of the battle of Green Springs Depot
More information on Civil War armored trains on another website
More information on the battle of Green Springs Depot on another website
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Korns family genealogy home page