Today in History:

945 Series I Volume XII-II (Supp.) Serial 17 - Second Manassas Part II (Supplemental)

Page 945 Chapter XXIV. CAMPAIGN IN NORTHERN VIRGINIA.

Question. Along where that jam occurred were there any railroad cars at the time?

Answer. The engines were passing back and forward from Warrenton Junction, down as far as they could go-down to this Cedar Creek. I had to send engines out and have them return again three or four times: perhaps four times. The first train I sent out I put upon a switch at Catlett's, and had the engine brought back again to take down another train as far as I could send it, which was down to near the creek. The engines that went down after remained, except one which returned to bring down the last train, there being, so many more cars than could be moved at once by the motive power that we had.

Examination by the judge-advocate here closed.

Examination by the COURT:

Question. How many efficient men would you have required to have cleared the road of wagons, commencing, say, at 10 o'clock that night?

Answer. It would be very difficult for me to answer that question intelligently, for I did not see these wagons at 10 o'clock, and I do not know what situation they were in at that time. I only saw them at the hour that I have named, when I was passing them. They may not have been in any jam at all at 10 o'clock. At the time I saw the wagons, the railroad track was on one side of them, and for some portion of the way where this jam occurred was timbered country; so far as I could judge, very densely timbered. It was very dark, and I could not judge very well about that. In some places it would have been very difficult to have moved those wagons without great trouble. In other places I think they could have been got out the road with reasonably energetic action. But everything was so obscure from the extreme darkness of the night, that it would be very difficult for me to give anything like a reasonable answer in regard to that matter.

Question. Were there any cars on the railroad from Warrenton Junction to Bristoe Station which would have prevented infantry from marching on the track after 1 o'clock on the morning of the 28th of August?

Answer. Yes, sir; there were.

Question. Was there any road by the side of the railroad upon which infantry troops could have marched, in order to avoid the obstructions on the railroad?

Answer. The only wagon road I know of was one that run almost the entire way, skirting along near the railroad track. That was the road which was used for wagon transportation.

Question. With 100 efficient men, commencing at 10 o'clock that night, do you think you could have cleared the wagon road so as to have rendered it passable for troops?

Answer. If I could have had command of the wagon road, and a sufficient force when the wagon trains commenced their movement, I think I could have kept them from a jam.

Question. At the point where the cars obstructed the railroad, was, or was not, the wagon road clear?

Answer. I do not think I can answer that question. The railroad track was not obstructed all the time. It was only from the trains passing down one way, and the engines returning again for more trains. It was that, I wish to be understood as saying, that would have prevented the movement of infantry troops upon the track without very great danger to them, and an almost, entire obstruction to the movement of trains. The wagon road skirting along almost the entire road, almost in the immediate neighborhood of the track, I cannot say what might have been the condition there, because, as I remarked before, the night was very dark, and it was like a man groping his way in the darkness without being able to see his hand before him much of the way, through the woods.

Question. Can you state what you would consider a sufficient number of men to have kept open the road?

Answer. I should judge that with 150 men under my command at the time I speak

60 R R-VOL XII, PT II, SUP


Page 945 Chapter XXIV. CAMPAIGN IN NORTHERN VIRGINIA.