In April 1861, as the Civil War erupted, Confederate forces seized the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad from Harpers Ferry west. On May 24, Gen. Joseph E. Johnston ordered Col. Thomas J. Jackson to destroy the rolling stock at Martinsburg, a Unionist stronghold. Jackson began on June 13, burning 300 cars and destroying 42 locomotives. He wrote his wife Anna that it was sad work, but he had his orders and his duty was to obey. He dismantled a few locomotives, and 40-horse teams dragged them south up the Martinsburg and Winchester Turnpike and then along the Valley Turnpike to Strasburg, where the first engine was reassembled. Because the track there was a different width, the locomotives could not be used in the Shenandoah Valley. Several were transported in pieces to Richmond, reassembled, and put to use. By the end of June, the Martinsburg roundhouse complex had been stripped of all stationary equipment, tools, and a 40-foot turntable, though the roundhouse and shops suffered only minor damage. Jackson returned in October 1862 after the Battle of Antietam and, while destroying Baltimore and Ohio Railroad property including twenty miles of track between Harpers Ferry and North Mountain, ordered the roundhouse and all the shops burned so nothing useful would remain for Federal forces. The roundhouse complex standing there now was constructed beginning in late 1865.
