(rshsdepot) Burgaw, NC

[I95BERNIEW_@_aol.com]

From the Star-News.
 
Photo at:  
_http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20081214/ARTICLES/812142959?Title=Depot
_Part_2__Historian_finds_evidence_of_depot_attack_ 
(http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20081214/ARTICLES/812142959?Title=Depot_Part_2__Historian_finds_ev
idence_of_depot_attack) 
 
Bernie Wagenblast
 
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 
Burgaw site of Civil War prisoner swap
 

Published: Sunday, December 14, 2008 at 8:07 p.m. 
 
Bits and pieces of telegraph messages were studied in context, and a  picture 
emerged.
 
It appeared to Mike Taylor that the Burgaw depot became communications  
headquarters for the Confederacy after the fall of Wilmington in February  1865.
 
The library director for Pender County Public Libraries and president of  
Burgaw Depot Historic Preservation Foundation had been asked to write a short  
history of the historic Burgaw depot to help raise funds for the building's  
renovation.
 
Subsequently, the Civil War Trails project funded a marker to commemorate  
the station's historical significance. Federally funded through a Transportation 
 Enhancements grant, the project develops historical markers to interpret  
campaign sites and corridors of the Civil War.
 
Taylor told in an interview how the depot with its telegraph acted as a hub  
for a prisoner exchange that took place in 1865:
 
Fort Fisher fell in January of 1865. It took another month of fighting  
before the Union army actually captured the city of Wilmington, working their  way 
up. At that time, there were 6,000 Union prisoners of war held in  Confederate 
prison camps in Florence, S.C.
 
As the South sunk because of lack of supplies an a shortage of food and  
resources, there was a great deal of suffering in the overcrowded prisons. For a  
period of a year, no prisoners had been exchanged. General Grant declared a  
moratorium on what had been frequent exchanges because Confederates would go  
right back to the lines.
 
When Sherman began to advance through South Carolina, Confederates moved to  
transport Florence prisoners to Salisbury, N.C. Meanwhile, with Wilmington  
falling, Confederates and citizens were evacuating and needed the trains.  
Prisoners were ordered to Burgaw, unloaded and the trains sent back.
 
Richmond and Washington, the capitols, were talking about resuming prisoner  
exchanges.
 
Finally an exchange was arranged. It lasted for a week at the end of  
February and beginning of March of 1865. Confederates released roughly 1,400  
prisoners a day, including 120 African American troops, loading them on the  train 
and taking them south. By March 4, nearly 9,000 prisoners were  traded.
 
A fire and attack on Burgaw’s historic train depot has long been part of  
area oral tradition.
 
When Mike Taylor put together a short history of the station to aid in the  
collection of grant money for its renovation, he stumbled across concrete  
documentation of the story.
 
The library director for Pender County Public Libraries and president of  
Burgaw Depot Historic Preservation Foundation found an account written about the  
event that likely took place in early 1863 in the text of a Union cavalry  
battalion history.
 
Taylor’s chronicle quotes a veteran of the incident, C.F. Frazier, who he  
calls “the historian” of the defending battalion:
 
“When a cavalry regiment of Federals from New Bern made a raid on the  
Wilmington & Weldon Railroad, burning the depot at Burgaw, the Tenth  Battalion 
pursued down below Richlands – heavy artillery pursing cavalry – the  cavalry 
came in on the home stretch, by all odds ahead.”
 
“Wilmington (& Weldon) Railroad along with the port was called the  lifeline 
of the Confederacy and what helped prolonged the war,” said Taylor,  “because 
the blockade runners bringing in supplies could take them by train to  Lee’s 
armies defending Richmond.
 
“When Fort Fisher and Wilmington fell, and Richmond was cut off, that  
basically ended the war,” he said. 
 
“In the battalion history I found, they had an account of defending the  
Burgaw depot from a cavalry attack, and the depot was set on fire,” Taylor said,  
giving his interpretation of the journal. “Confederate heavy artillery pursued 
 the Union cavalry along a historic road, what would have been called the 
Great  Holly Shelter Road, an east-west corridor which ran towards where 
Jacksonville  is now. You have to deduce that the building didn’t burn down.”
 
The Office of Archives and History said that the 1850 portion is still  
standing. Fire damage can be seen in the original portion of the depot.
 
The depot renovation, which is scheduled to be finished in summer 2009,  will 
include displays based on its history.
 
Mike Taylor, president of Burgaw Depot Historic Preservation Foundation and  
library director for Pender County Public Libraries, put together a history of 
 the railroad station to aid in the collection of grant money for its  
renovation.
 
“Considered in the whole,” Taylor wrote, “the depot reflects the historical  
development of the railroad in North Carolina in the 19th and 20th  centuries.
”
 
BURGAW DEPOT TIMELINE
 
1850: Burgaw Depot built on the Wilmington & Weldon Railroad. W&W,  completed 
in 1840, was at the time hailed as the longest railroad in the  world.
 
1851: Telegraph likely installed.
 
1861-65: The W&W Railroad along with the Wilmington port earns a  reputation 
as “The Lifeline of the Confederacy” during the Civil War. Blockade  runners 
slip past Union Navy delivering valuable supplies, which are transported  by 
rail to the Confederate capital of Richmond.
 
February 1865: Depot acts as headquarters for retreating Confederate  
generals and their troops after the fall of Wilmington as it becomes staging  area 
for an exchange of more than 8,000 often emaciated Union prisoners.
 
April 9, 1865: Message from a Federal soldier reports, “I have the honor to  
report that the telegraph operator at Burgaw Station was captured last evening 
 and the wire cut by the rebels.”
 
1875: Residents of northern New Hanover County petition to form a new  county 
named Pender.
 
August 1877: Burgaw Depot site ratified as county seat. W&W offers  donation 
of land and railroad surveyors sent to lay out a town.
 
1879: Town of Burgaw incorporated.
 
1896: Wilmington Evening Dispatch reports a thriving trade center  developing 
around Burgaw.
 
1898: Travel by rail becomes more refined. Passenger waiting rooms and rail  
offices added to the south end of the depot.
 
1906-7: Industries locate near the rail line. These include Garysburg  
Manufacturing Company, followed by the East River Lumber Company and the Union  
Brick and Tile Company.
 
1916-17: North freight platform expanded as rapid rail transportation  
creates distant markets for produce. Original architectural plans used in the  
expansion show details of the smaller station.
 
1967: Passenger trains stop running.
 
1980: Burgaw Jaycees seek to use the depot as a clubhouse, later forming  
Burgaw Depot Historic Preservation Foundation. Two years later, the old W&W,  now 
the Seaboard Line, conveyed ownership to the town of Burgaw without cost. 
 
1993: State negotiates donation of the 26.8-mile abandoned rail corridor,  
but three years later Hurricane Fran tears back the building’s metal roof.  
Federal Emergency Management Agency provides the registered site with an  historic 
replica.
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