Duffields Depot Raid

During the Shenandoah Valley campaign of 1864 and 1865, Confederate successes in the summer and Gen. Jubal A. Early's Washington Raid were followed by Union Gen. Philip H. Sheridan's victories at Winchester and Cedar Creek, the burning of mills and barns, and the destruction of the remnants of Early's force at Waynesboro on March 2, 1865, developments that aided President Abraham Lincoln's reelection and cut off provisions from the Confederacy's breadbasket to Gen. Robert E. Lee's army. At Duffields Depot, Lt. Co. John S. Mosby's Partisan Rangers of the 43rd Battalion Virginia Cavalry carried out a raid on June 29, 1864, in support of Early's advance north down the valley. Riding from Upperville, Virginia, they aimed to disrupt Federal communications by cutting telegraph wires and seizing a train on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. After captured Union pickets revealed that an eastbound train was expected within minutes, Mosby placed a howitzer on a knoll overlooking the depot, guardhouse, and stockade, demanded the surrender of the Federal garrison, and received it when the officer in charge saw the gun and Mosby's superior force. As the expected train failed to arrive, Mosby's men ransacked the depot, seized supplies, cut telegraph wires, burned most of the building except the depot, and escaped south with about 65 prisoners before Federal reinforcements arrived. Union forces soon reoccupied the depot, and the rail line remained a frequent Confederate target. Built in 1839 by landowner Richard Duffield, with the B&O paying him $2,500 for construction and right-of-way, Duffields Depot is the oldest surviving purpose-built combined freight and passenger rail station in the United States; a new depot built across the tracks in 1884 was demolished in 1942, and the original depot, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007, was acquired that year by Duffields Station, Inc., which is restoring it to its Civil War-era appearance.

West Virginia · United States