In the fall and early winter of 1861, the Centreville Confederate Military Railroad was built to transport supplies to the field armies of Generals Pierre G. T. Beauregard and Joseph Johnston. Running about six miles from Manassas Junction, across Bull Run, to the Centreville Plateau, it was prompted by an unusually cold and rainy autumn that turned roads into impassable mud. To supply the 40,000 troops who entered winter quarters at Centreville in October, General Johnston chose to build this six-mile spur linking with the railroad lines at Manassas Junction, and by the first week of January 1862 it was shown complete between the Junction and its Centreville terminus. Known as the Centreville Military Railroad, it was the first railroad in the world built by the military expressly for military purposes, and it helped keep men and animals supplied so the Confederate army could hold the strong position on the Centreville Heights until withdrawing from the area in March 1862.
