The C&O Canal In the Civil War: A Brief Overview

by Gary M. Petrichick

From John Brown’s invasion of the Federal Armory at Harpers Ferry in November 1859 until the Alexandria Aqueduct was reopened in 1868, the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal was heavily impacted by the Civil War, yet like so many aspects of the Canal’s ties to the history of our nation, the role of the Canal in the war remains largely a mystery. Antietam and Gettysburg are universally known but the battles at Balls Bluff, Monocacy, and Folcks Mill are familiar primarily to local residents and historians.

Lying on the border between the Union and the Confederacy, the Canal’s importance was recognized by both sides early in the conflict. In addition to its value in supplying the City of Washington with coal and other products, it would also be used by the military for the movement of troops and supplies, and while the Potomac was wider and often deeper, the canal with its soft clay prism served as a second barrier to Confederate invasion.  The Canal came under the control of the U.S. Army in December 1861, though skirmishing had been taking place along the entire length of the Canal since the fall of Harpers Ferry in April.

Stonewall Jackson’s 1861 Shenandoah Valley Campaign included many forays against the Canal and neighboring B&O RR, and the South’s two attempts to bring the war to the North, resulting in the battles of Antietam in September 1862 and Gettysburg in July 1863, wreaked havoc with many crossings of and depredations to the canal by both armies. Mid 1864 action saw McCausland’s Confederate cavalry repulsed at the Battle of Folcks Mill near Cumberland in the West, and Jubal Early fighting the Battle of the Monocacy and advancing to the very border of Washington before last minute Union reinforcements forced his retreat in the East.

The Confederate Army did considerable damage to canal facilities with attempts to destroy Dams # 4 ,5, and 6, and the Monocacy River, Antietam Creek, and Conococheague Creek Aqueducts. Boats were burned and mules confiscated. The steam pump at Potomac Forks was disabled, many locks were damaged, and breaches of the towpath all interrupted canal operations for varying lengths of time. The Union Army caused disruptions in canal operations as well, not the least of which was the commandeering of over 100 canal boats in early 1862 to be loaded with rubble and sunk in shoals in the lower Potomac if the CSS Virginia (ex USS Merrimac) sailed toward Washington. No community from the Capitol to Cumberland was left unscathed with skirmishes recorded at Great Falls, Seneca, Edwards Ferry, Point of Rocks, Lander, Berlin (now Brunswick), Williamsport, Hancock, Oldtown, and all points in between.

A sampling of wartime events along the canal include: (1) the death of Col. Edward Baker, a U.S. Senator and boyhood friend of President Lincoln, at the October 1861 battle at Ball’s Bluff, which led to the formation of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, a frequent thorn in the side of both the Administration and the Army for the remainder of hostilities; (2) the notorious case of “lockjaw” (see Along The Towpath, June 2000), where Union plans in February 1862 to bridge the Potomac at Harpers Ferry with C&O Canal boats were thwarted when at the last minute it was found that the Shenandoah River lock was too narrow by inches to pass the boats; (3) the imprisonment of Canal Company President Alfred Spates at Fort McHenry for almost five months in 1863 and 1864 for allegedly communicating with the enemy during the Gettysburg campaign; and (4) the capture by McNeill’s rangers of Union Generals George Crook and Benjamin Kelley from under the noses of Union troops in Cumberland in early 1865.                               

Some of these events and more will be expanded on in future issues, but for those who can’t wait, I recommend the following: Civil War Guide to Montgomery County, Maryland, Charles T. Jacobs; The Civil War Era in Cumberland, Maryland and Nearby Keyser, West Virginia, Harold Scott, Sr.; A Guide to Civil War Sites in Maryland, Susan Cooke Soderberg; The Civil War in Maryland, Daniel Carroll Toomey; and Battle at Ball’s Bluff, Kim Bernard Holien.

Before embarking upon this historical odyssey, however, we should all consider the reflections offered in the article that follows.  

On History

Malcolm opened the bedroom door and his heart began to race! There on the lounge by the window lay Penelope, her alabaster skin glowing softly in the moonlight ... but I digress.

“History” depends upon perception and memory, both of which can be somewhat less than perfect.  I recall an aunt and uncle who traveled extensively during my youth. It was difficult as a child to hold back the laughter at family conclaves when listening to them recount their latest vacation because from their individual accounts (and the resulting argument) you’d swear they’d gone on different trips.

We think of our minds as camcorders, recording everything exactly as it occurs, but in reality, what enters through our eyes and ears is filtered and interpreted by the brain before being stored in what we call memory. The filtration and interpretation is based on experience, biases, and so forth. Chronicles of an event by two or more witnesses can vary greatly, and those differences can be exacerbated when the chronicling is done years, even decades after the fact.

Add to this the reality that histories of wars tend to be recorded by the victors. Every school child is familiar with the battle of the Monitor and Merrimac, but in fact, the USS Merrimac was burned to the waterline when the Federal Gosport Navy Yard near Norfolk was evacuated in April 1861. It was refloated and rebuilt by the Confederate Navy as an ironclad, and had been renamed the CSS Virginia at the time it engaged the Monitor in April 1862. Why is it Antietam and not Sharpsburg? Bull Run and not Manassas? Simply put, the North won. It wasn’t until recent years that both appellations gained general acceptance, though that is yet to be the case for the poor CSS Virginia.

This can be frustrating to one trying to assemble an account of events from a new perspective, such as the Civil War as it pertained to the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal. What does one do when five sources give three different dates for the same event? When one account has an event occurring on a single day while another stretches it out over two? When your source is secondary and may have introduced errors not in the primary source which is not available to you? One makes the best of it and asks forbearance from one’s audience. And so I ask.

(This article was published in the June 2007 issue of Along The Towpath, the newsletter of the C&O Canal Association.)

Back to Civil War Series index