Research team that developed the first commercially successful self idc in u. S. Postage stamp. He has written 20 civil war and underground railroad books. Of generalgraphy william extra billy smith won multiple awards, including dr. James i robertson juniors literary prize for confederate history. He has also written several articles for the gettysburg magazine as well as other historical publications. Scott and his wife debbie reside in north pennsylvania. Scott. Scott thanks for coming today. Roles to talk about the of the railroads here in pennsylvania. I have written three books on the three railroads that ran between maryland and pennsylvania during the civil war. They were respectively from east to west, the philadelphia wilmington and baltimore railroads which ran through those three key cities, the north and central rail right which ran from harrisburg down to baltimore and the third key railroad that ran between maryland and pennsylvania during the civil war. The Cumberland Valley railroad is going to be the subject of our talk today. All three of those railroads were targeted by the Confederate Army during the civil war multiple times. That as well as the northern central had bridges burn your baltimore both in 1861, again in 1864, and in 1863, there were attempts on the northern central ridges as well. 31 of them were destroyed in york county, penciling you. Perhaps no road and pennsylvania saw as many confederate incursions or as many attacks as the Cumberland Valley railroad, and the title of our book, targeted tracks. This is the route of the Cumberland Valley. The Cumberland Valley railroad ran during the civil war years from carisbrooke, pennsylvania down to chambersburg. Subsidiary during the later war owned by the philadelphia. For the purpose of our talk, will be consisting of the entire line of the Franklin Railroad and the cd r r that ran from hagerstown north to the susquehanna river. Is aprs president gentleman named fred watts. Frederick watts is important in the history of Pennsylvania State university. Fred watts was one of the leading proponents of agricultural education in the United States and is recognized in some quarters as the father of Pennsylvania State university. Long before that, he was the father of the Cumberland Valley railroad. He was one of the early proponents to get this railroad built. He then served on the board of directors and later served as the president of the railroad during the civil war and for several decades oath and after. Frederick watts had a vision to turn the Cumberland Valley from a small Regional Railroad into something that would be nationally important. Entreedid he know his into the National Scene would be the Confederate Army and the publicity his railroad would get. Cvrably the first time the plays any role in what becomes the conflict between the north and the south is during john browns raid on Harpers Ferry in 1862. Most of the raiders, including john brennan himself, arrived on the Cumberland Valley railroad having traveled through harrisburg. They set up their headquarters in downtown chambersburg. Ironically, at the boardinghouse that was owned by the widow of of abolition governors pennsylvania, governor joseph witmer. Mary witmers boardinghouse would see numerous people going throughout the summer of 1850 nine, including john brown. Frederick watts Frederick Douglass would come on the railroad as well. He would meet with john brown. On some accounts, john brown tried to sweettalk Frederick Douglass into physically enjoy physically joining the attack on Harpers Ferry. He does not do it. About the year, the summer in particular, brown and his cohorts are bringing in large stick large shipments of goods on the Cumberland Valley railroad. He calls himself dr. Isaac smith. He has been telling the good people of the Cumberland Valley and he is a minor miner he has been looking for iron or lines and he has been bringing back supplies to the railroad on things like pigs and axis, when in reality they were muskets and pikes. They would use the Cumberland Valley railroad to go down to maryland, and he would set up his headquarters on the kennedy farm, and in the october of 1859, john brown and his men would raid. Some of the raiders come back to the Cumberland Valley and tried to catch the railroad to get out of the valley. A number of them are going to be captured near the Cumberland Valley railroad station in scotland, pennsylvania, where some of the raiders are getting captured. One of the raiders managed to escape on the railroad and wound up all the way in york, pennsylvania, where members of the underground railroad would smuggle a free back a free black all the way to toronto, canada at that point. This railroad has got somewhat of a starcrossed background. There is a lot of National Publicity as for the role, some of the members of the railroad are investigated as collaborators. Did they get involved with brown or not . No charges would stick. Toleads to speculation as the railroads overall loyalty. Judge watts himself tends to be a middleoftheroad person. As war begins and the clouds of war start with the election of abraham lincoln, secession in a number of states, and war breaks out in april of 1861 following the confederate bombardment of fort sumter. Judge watts goes to a political rally in carlisle, and he is in favor of the compromises that are trying to hold the union together, perhaps allowing the south to keep slavery. His son is the most vocal person against the compromises, and he wants immediate this is a quick snapshot of a small Regional Railroad. They do not have a lot of hardware and equipment. This is a one track railroad. This railroad moves a lot of freight. Coalcularly in or, timber, things of that nature. Railroad has some fairly interesting stock. One is the pioneer. It is one of the most powerful locomotives. By the time of the civil war, it is clearly outdated. It is designed more for passenger service. The railroad does not have a lot of heavy freight. The first unit to leave the Cumberland Valley is artillery. They have enthusiasm. They will take off and head on these right Yellow Railroad cars. It took its most powerful and it took them into harrisburg. They merely become infantry. This is the harrisburg station that they went to. It housed four different railroads. It was one of the few railroad stations in the north that actually handled many different railroads. At times, the station was quite active. That reminded people to get on the right train. A lot of the early traffic in the Cumberland Valley is distinctly related to the civil war. Will go down in history as one of the very first railroads ever used to liberally by the military. In 1861, thomas jackson, later known as stonewall jackson, he lingers for a while. He will be superseded by Joseph Johnson, who arrives to take command of the Confederate Forces at Harpers Ferry. The yankees do not like this. Concern thatt of it is fairly easy to launch an invasion from the north. That is something people in pennsylvania are worried about. They are bordering slaves straight. There is significant insurgency in harrisburg. Perhaps the commonwealth as well as its vital railroads will be part of the confederacy. They start recruiting pennsylvanian soldiers and moving them into chambersburg. As a launching point for potential first run into Harpers Ferry. The Cumberland Valley railroad will start bringing significant of Union Volunteers into chambersburg. It becomes the Assembly Point for what is later the army of the shenandoah. He is assigned command of all of these volunteers. He comes out and a brightly protect railroad car into chambersburg with the band playing. Having a parade on a sunday was not something you did. There was a very conservative town. This guy shows up with marching bands and a military escort. He tells people that they are going out to virginia. He manages to get the troops organized. Is forblem with that those of you familiar with bull run of the first manassas campaign, is number one role for all of these volunteers, their goal is to keep Joseph Johnson bottled up inside the qandil and Cumberland Valley. It is a task patterson fails miserably. Johnson is able to get his troops to ride the rails into manassas junction, and we all know the story. His men will arrive in time to correct the balance of the first battle of manassas and lead to a confederate victory. Everyone realizes the war will not be over so quickly. You have all kinds of problems, and now they started raising troops for three years, one year, different terms of service, and the Cumberland Valley railroad brings the first group of boys home and start shipping the larger groups out of the Cumberland Valley back into harrisburg to be recruited. Fastforward forward to 1862 from all those rumors, the confederates are going to come to harrisburg from a finally start coming true. Rumors abound that the Confederate Army is marching on pennsylvania, late august, early september, 1862. The governor of pennsylvania, republican, a close friend of the president of the United States abraham lincoln, he says we need troops. He calls out the Pennsylvania State militia. Pennsylvania has a standing militia before the war, but in general the prerogative is a cloud to activate the National Guard and raise these men into regiments to respond to emergencies. They werent allowed to leave the commonwealth borders. It was only for the defense of pennsylvanians that you could activate this militia. They are going to get thousands of these new state militiamen and the Cumberland Valley railroad will be pressed into service to bring them to chambersburg. By the why, general patterson left in an unmarked car without a military escort and was out of town in the middle of a nondescript business day. The new officer in 1862 was john fulton reynolds. Reynolds takes command, very militarylike, arrives on a train with troops into chambersburg, no pomp and circumstance, very businesslike. Reynolds takes charge of the Pennsylvania State militia. The militia men will serve throughout the antietam campaign. They are not ever going to see combat, for which reynolds is somewhat grateful, not quite sure how the men will do, confides to his sister in a letter, his doubts about the quality of the Pennsylvania State militia. Nevertheless, the militia ends up moving back through the cvrr. By the way, the Cumberland Valley ran through downtown chambersburg, downtown greencastle, through mechanicsburg, downtown shippensburg. The major hotels and businesses lined the Railroad Tracks. It is the main streets and most of these towns, and these boys and their soldier uniforms are thrilled because the townspeople, particular the pretty girls of the Cumberland Valley, turn out lavishly to cheer these men. At one point, they go by the female academy, to which one soldier says, i think we need to stop the train right here and make this our camp the rest of the war. Well, they will obviously not stop at the female academy. You can see what these young men in blue are it is all really good at that point in time. Well, just a few weeks later, another problem occurs. By the way this is his letter to his sister basically saying there is nothing in the valley that will stop the rebels. If the rebels want to come to harrisburg come in fact, we have a problem. Now, just a few weeks, a few days after reynolds makes the declaration, on the day after the battle of antietam, perhaps the cvrrs finest moment in the civil war. General mcclellan is out of ammunition and orders more from washington. Theyre going to load it up on the b o, take it to baltimore, and transfer it to northern central. The northern central will leave baltimore in the train of ammunition will arrive in hagerstown in four hours and 31 minutes. I cant do that today on the highways with all the traffic. This train loaded with incredibly explosive ammunition careens at speeds up to 54 Miles Per Hour on tracks never designed for cars going more than 40 Miles Per Hour, and the standard working speed for a Freight Train in those days was 20 to 25 Miles Per Hour. You aree doubling that. These cars get so hot they worry about it catching on fire. They have to stop twice and physically cool the train off so it wont catch on fire. Anybody can guess what a boxcar of ammunition would have done in downtown carlisle, pennsylvania . It wouldnt have been pretty. It is a stunning example of mcclellans generalship in those days. He needs ammunition. Even though these railroaders have risked their lives and set a speed record the cvrr has ever will run during the civil war, not a single one of these rounds is fired at the confederates during the maryland campaign, at least up to that point in time. But, it becomes known as the amazing antietam ammunition run. It is the finest hour. It gets a lot of national press. They are really happy. The militia starts coming home. Reynolds starts bringing them back, and the darkest hour for the railroad soon follows. On december 26, heavy fog along the susquehanna river, a train barreling through the fog filled with the 20th volunteer militia from philadelphia smashes into the bridge locomotive called utility and 30 soldiers are killed or permanently maimed. Now the Cumberland Valley is in the press again, but not for a reason they want. It is one of the worst losses of u. S. Soldiers at that point in the civil war on civilian run railroads. That will change. Unfortunately, there will be worst tragedies yet to come. Just watch though, just terrified about the possible legal ramifications for what is going on come and more importantly, the loss of potential lucrative military business. They managed to avoid any kind of legal reality and the cvrr keeps their contract. The cvrr has another problem looming, that is jeb stuart. Just four weeks later after the disaster where the utility is slammed into the train, jeb stuart comes to pennsylvania. What else would he be doing . You can see on the maps on the screen the location of mcclellans army still sitting idle in maryland doing very little. Stuart decides im going to break apart the cvrr, the main supply line that will feed mcclellans army. Other two, the more volatile is the cvrr, so he takes three brigades of calvary and comes across the masondixon line into chambersburg. He ends up wrecking the cvrr at chambersburg. They will destroy the turntable and destroy most of the offices and whatever Rolling Stock is still there, the warehouse is in and around the train station. Chambersburg sees flames on the north side of town for hours and hours and hours as the area immediately around the railroad station burns to the ground. He is going to go on, to turn the bridge that cant be burned. He believes that story and heres the state militia is coming after him, then heres the Union Regulars are coming after him, so he will head towards gettysburg, comes within six miles of gettysburg in october of 1862 before he turned south and heads back into virginia. That raid by stuart alarms the railroads in pennsylvania. They realize exactly how vulnerable they are. They have already lost bridges, now Rolling Stock, and the confederates have proven a wellplanned raid can reach the very heart of some of these northern railroads. Some of the photographs taken of the confederates, they raid the warehouse is first but then burn chambersburg, so Rolling Stock, this is what the town wouldve looked like an 1862, as stewarts men arrived. Governor curtain is alarmed by this, frantically starts dispatching with washington about how candy Cumberland Valley be better protected. 1863, the reverend has another problem. They rebuilt the depot, the warehouse in the turntable, rebuilt just about everything just in time for the gettysburg campaign. In the confederates come back to pennsylvania again. Now instead of jeb stuart, it is jenkins from the western virginia area. He will lead his calvary into chambersburg and they will start raiding the railroads and find out the scotland bridges not made of iron. It is made of wood. We can burn it, and they do. They destroyed the largest bridge southwest of the susquehanna river along the cvrr. Along the way, greencastle the scotland, jenkins and his men are destroying Railroad Tracks, burning railroad buildings. They are working on th