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Point of Rocks
Point of Rocks During the War
The rail line immediately before you served as an important means of supply and communication during the Civil War (the station, and tracks to Washington, D.C., on the southern or right side of the station were built later). Here at Point of Rocks, formerly Trammelstown, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad reached the banks of the Potomac River from Baltimore. This narrow strip of bottomland, which allowed passage beyond the Blue Ridge's Catoctin and South Mountain ranges, had been the subject of a court fight decades earlier when the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal and the railroad sought to use it.
In May 1861, Col. Thomas J. (later Gen. "Stonewall") Jackson convinced the railroad to consolidate its coal shipments at a specific time period. He then captured 56 locomotives and more than 300 rail cars by halting all train traffic east of Point of Rocks. In 1864, Confederate Lt. Col. John S. Mosby, in what became known as the "Calico Raid" or the "Crinoline Raid," attacked the Union garrison here. Throughout the war, pro-Union families living in Loudoun County, Va., crossed the river here to shop. |