March 2023
Haupt and his Construction Corps again began repairing the RF&P. Haupt discovered that the damage done by Burnside’s soldiers in August was more easily repaired than that done by the Confederates in April. By this time, the United States Military Railroad Construction Corps was experienced and by hiring civilians, the wharves were soon repaired and track restored.
The high bridge across Potomac Creek was replaced with a truss structure. During this time, thousands of enslaved people took the opportunity to ride the rails and steamboats north to freedom. Due to the heavy military engagements around Fredericksburg and thereafter westward at Chancellorsville, the Wilderness, and Spotsylvania Courthouse, war supplies came south; the wounded were evacuated north. As a result, there was very heavy traffic at the Aquia Creek steamboat wharves. To relieve some of this traffic, a branch line was constructed that ran south about a mile and a half below Aquia Creek with extensive wharves. It was officially named Burnside’s
Recovered U.S. Minié ball bullets from Aquia Creek Landing area. The two bullets in the center were flattened. The far right is a .69 caliber bullet made into a fishing sinker.
Wharf, but the railroaders called it “Youbedam Landing.”
After the Civil War, Youbedamn Landing was abandoned; the RF&P Railroad lines were constructed north from Brooke, Va., through Quantico, and later to Washington. Some of the Aquia Landing material was taken and used for constructing the northern rail line.. Building foundations existed for years but gradually disappeared due to weather, recycling, pilfering, and shoreline erosion. The dock planks were removed leaving hundreds of pilings exposed well into the 1960’s when the Army Corps of Engineers cut them off at the creek bottom. The pilings were a severe hazard to navigation for many years until removed. They did provide a great fishing spot where one could move a rowboat into the pilings, tie off to them, and drop a line for abundant stiff back perch.
Local watermen even cut a 20foot section out next to the shore so they could move between the creek and river without going all the way around the pilings. Many a person on shore would wave frantically about the danger as the watermen and other locals would cruise through that space grinning. Presently, there are no visible pilings. There are only red danger markers at the outer extent of the pilings to warn boaters to stay clear as there may still be some the Corps missed.
Built, destroyed, and rebuilt eight times, the RF&P Railroad’s Aquia Landing stands as a testament to man’s ingenuity and dogged determination.
The primary source for this article was “One Hundred and Fifty Years of History Along the RF&P Railroad,” by Bill Griffin.
