the Richmond and York River Railroad was used by the Confederate Army in 1861 and the Union Army in 1862
Source: Library of Congress, Richmond and York River Railroad (Confederate States of America, 1864)
the Richmond and York River Railroad was used by the Confederate Army in 1861 and the Union Army in 1862
Source: Library of Congress, Richmond and York River Railroad (Confederate States of America, 1864)
The first charter for a railroad to connect Richmond with the Chesapeake Bay was granted by the General Assembly in 1832. The Richmond and Yorktown Railroad Company was unable to attract investors.
In 1851, the Virginia legislature chartered the York River Steam Navigation Company and the Richmond and York River Railroad Company. It was authorized to remove obstructions on the Pamunkey and Mattapony rivers so it could operate steamboats on them and the York River. The charter also permitted construction of the Richmond and York River Railroad to create a land-based transportation connection between West Point, at the confluence of the Pamunkey and Mattapony rivers, with Richmond.
It was not until another charter was granted in 1853 for the Richmond and York River Railroad that enough investors were recruited to organize a company and begin construction. The Bureau of Public Works was directed to purchase 60% of the company stock, making the project a public-private partnership comparable to other railroads at the time. Track was built in Richmond from Rocketts Landing up Gillie Creek, across the swampy headwaters of the Chickahominy River, through Higgins Swamp.
The possibility of building west of Richmond into Henrico County was considered. However, the New York and Richmond Coal Company went out of business in 1860.1
"Report from the Board of the Richmond and York River Railroad," Richmond Dispatch, November 8, 1860, in "Civil War Richmond," https://www.civilwarrichmond.com/other-sites/railroads/250-1860-11-08-richmond-dispatch-report-from-the-board-of-the-richmond-and-york-river-railroad-important-details-about-rr-s-plans-and-operations (last checked July 5, 2020)
the Richmond and York River Railroad never built west of Richmond to the coal fields in Chestergfield/Henrico counties
Source: Library of Congress, Map of the Springfield & Deep Run estates on the Coal Lands of the N. York & Richmond Coal Co, in Henrico Co. Virginia (by S. Herries Debow, 1856); Library of Virginia, A map of the rail roads of Virginia (1858)
the Richmond and York River Railroad crossed the watershed divide between the Chickahominy and Pamunkey rivers near Quinton
Source: US Geological Survey (USGS), Quinton, VA 1:24,000 topographic quadrangle (2019)
the Richmond and York River Railroad reached the Pamunkey River in 1859, and West Point in 1861
Source: Library of Congress, A map of the state of Virginia (by Lewis Von Buchholtz, L. V., Herman Böÿe, Benjamin Tanner, 1859)
On March 29, 1861, the Richmond and York River Railroad started operations. It stretched 39 miles east from downtown Richmond to West Point, providing access to a deepwater port at the head of the York River. The company purchased a steamboat and ran trains, initially carrying supplies and troops for the Confederate government.1
Fairfax Harrison, A History of the Legal Development of the Railroad System of Southern Railway Company, Washington DC, 1901, pp.237-239, https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/0IkjAQAAMAAJ (last checked May 7, 2020)
At the railroad's western terminus in Richmond, the depot was built at the mouth of Gillies Creek. Like all other railroads in Richmond, no track connected the Richmond and York River Railroad depot to any oter railroad. Freight and passengers had to use horse-drawn wagons and stagecoaches to continue a trip on any separate railroad.
railroad depots in Richmond were isolated from each other at the start of the Civil War in 1861
Source: Library of Congress, Map of the city of Richmond, Virginia (1864)
to minimize grade in western New Kent County, the Richmond and York River Railroad built through the valley of Black Creek
Source: US Geological Survey (USGS), Tunstall, VA 1:24,000 topographic quadrangle (2019)
when constructed in 1861, the Richmond and York River Railroad was routed across the Pamunkey reservation
Source: US Geological Survey (USGS), Tunstall VA 1:24,000 topographic quadrangle (1949)
the Richmond and York River Railroad depot was next to the turning basin of the James River and Kanawha Canal
Source: Virginia Commonwealth University, Baist Atlas of Richmond - Part of Jefferson & Marshall Wards Richmond (1899)
During the 1862 Peninsula Campaign, General George McClellan led the Union Army of the Potomac up the Peninsula from Fort Monroe. When supply wagons and heavy artillery bogged down in the sift dirt roads, he chose to leapfrog the problem by creating supply bases further upstream on the York River shoreline. In early May, Union troops seized Eltham Landing and then West Point, at the confluence of the Mattaponi and Paminkey rivers.
They moved upstream and captured White House Landing, where the railroad crossed from New Kent County on the southern side of the Pamunkey River to the Pamunkey Indian Reservation in King William County. Confederates burned the railroad bridge there before retreating, but the Union Army seized a railroad which ran 23 miles straight into the heart of Richmond.1
Laurence M. Hauptman, Between Two Fires: American Indians in the Civil Wa, Simon and Schuster, 1996, pp.70-71, https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/UCGCgR4zXvwC (last checked May 7, 2020)<
Confederates burned the railroad bridge over the Pamunkey River just before Union forces seized White House Landing
Source: Library of Congress, Military map of south-eastern Virginia (1862)
destroyed Richmond and York River Railroad bridge across Pamunkey River
Source: Library of Congress, Virginia. Ruins of bridge on Richmond & York River Railroad (by James F. Gibson, May 1862)
The Union Army created a massive supply depot using the White House Landing wharves to unload and the portion of the Richmond and York River Railroad east of the Pamunkey River to transport material to the front lines.
General McClellan's primary base of operations for the 1862 Peninsula Campaign was at White House Landing, with its easy access to the Richmond and York River Railroad
Source: Library of Congress, Central Virginia: showing Lieut. Gen'l. U.S. Grant's campaign and marches of the armies under his command in 1864-5 (US War Department. Engineer Bureau, between 1864 and 1869)
the Richmond and York River Railroad gave Richmond access to a better port at West Point
Source: Library of Congress, Hare's map of the vicinity of Richmond, and Peninsular campaign in Virginia (by J. Knowles Hare, 1862)
The US Military Railroads barged locomotives from Alexandria to the Pamunkey River, in order to maintain supply line for General McClellan's Union Army as it attempted to seize Richmond. When McClellan changed his base of operations, the mansion house on the plantation once owned by Martha Custis Dandridge and George Washington was burned. DESTOY LOCOMOIVES2
Union forces burned the mansion house on the White House plantation in 1862, when Gen. McClellan changed his base of operations at the end of the Peninsula Campaign to the James River
Source: Library of Congress, The remains of the White House - burned when McClellan evacuated the place (by William Waud, May 1862)
the US Military Railroad locomotives were destroyed when General McClellan changed his base of operations at the end of the Peninsula Campaign
Source: Library of Congress, Destruction of the locomotives on the bridge over the Chickahominy (by Alfred R. Waud, 1862)
In June 1864, as the Union Army crossed the James River and the 1864 Overland Campaign became the siege of Petersburg, the US Military Railroad removed rails from the Richmond and York River Railroad. They were used to rebuild the City Point Railroad, since the first four miles of rail west from the James River had been removed by the Confederates.1
"United States Military Railroad -- City Point & Army Line," The Petersburg Project, http://www.petersburgproject.org/u-s-military-railroad.html (last checked July 4, 2020)
After the Civil War, the railroad was reopened in 1867. In 1870 the General Assembly authorized it to build further east to the Chesapeake Bay, and a 20-mile extension to the mouth of the Piankatank River was selected in 1873. However, that decision was made after the company went into bankruptcy and was reorganized as the Richmond, York River and Chesapeake Railroad in 1873.
Harpers Weekly incorrectly showed a railroad connection between Richmond-Rappahannock River in 1861
Source: Library of Congress, Map of the southern states, including rail roads (Harpers Weekly, 1861)
The new owners operated steamboats between Baltimore and West Point, creating an integrated transportation system called the York River Line. They also built a connection in Richmond to link the terminal of the Richmond, York River and Chesapeake Railroad with the terminal of the Richmond and Danville Railroad and established the Piedmont Air Line in 1875 offering through-ticketing from Danville to Baltimore.
The "Clyde interests" acquired control of both railroads and created the Richmond and West Point Terminal Railway and Warehouse Company, a syndicate typically called the Richmond Terminal Company, which connected railroads stretching from Texas to New York. It was a holding company that bypassed legal constraints in railroad charters which limited the ability to merge companies, and facilitated manipulation of assets of diferent companies for the benefit of selected insiders at the expense of other stockholders.
The Richmond Terminal Company went bankrupt, and the Southern Railway acquired the Richmond, York River and Chesapeake Railroad in 1894. The Southern Railway also acquired the Norfolk and Carolina Railroad, and diverted most traffic away from West Point to that line's terminal in Portsmouth at Pinners Point.1
Fairfax Harrison, A History of the Legal Development of the Railroad System of Southern Railway Company, Washington DC, 1901, pp.237-246, https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/0IkjAQAAMAAJ; "Southern Railway Company et. al.," Interstate Commerce Commission Reports - Volume 37, Valuation Reports, Government Printing Office, 1931, p.566, https://books.google.com/books?id=CR4fAQAAIAAJ (last checked June 29, 2020)
the Richmond and York River Railroad reached West Point in 1861
Source: Library of Congress, Map of part of Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware : from the best authorities (1861)
by 1899, the Richmond, York River and Chesapeake Railroad could interchange with the Chesapeake and Ohio (C&O) and the Richmond and Danville (R&D) railroads in Richmond
Source: Virginia Commonwealth University, Atlas of the City of Richmond (George William Baist, 1889)
On the still-active tracks of what is now the Norfolk Southern, the crossing of the Mt. Olive Cohoke Road (Route 632) is rumored to be haunted. A "ghost light" reportedly floats several feet above the tracks. Local lore suggests it is a reincarnation of the lantern held by a headless train crewman or person struck by a chain hanging off the train, or of a Richmond and York River Railroad locomotive attacked during the Civil War while carrying Confederate wounded. There is no recorded train wreck with a decapitation that matches the tale, or Union attack on a train loaded with wounded Confederates, but many local residents claim to have seen the West Point ghost light.1
"Cohoke Ghost Light at West Point, VA," Virginia Paranormal, December 20, 2015, https://youtu.be/hztZ5ek3_mY; "Ghost light legend haunts King William railroad crossing," Daily Press, October 25, 2017, https://www.dailypress.com/virginiagazette/va-vg-tr-ghost-light-1025-story.html (last checked September 1, 2020)
paranormal advocates and those who enjoy a party report seing the West Point "ghost light" at Cohoke Crossing (red X)
Source: ESRI, ArcGIS Online
the US Military Railroad carried wounded to hospitals during the Peninsula Campaign, using the track of the Richmond and York River Railroad
Source: Library of Congress, Bringing wounded soldiers to the cars after the battle of Seven Pines (by Alfred R. Waud, 1862)
the Richmond and York River Railroad connected to steamships that linked to Baltimore
Source: Library of Congress, Map of the Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio Railroad connecting the railroads of Virginia with the railroads of Kentucky... (1881)