of the Board, a position he held for six years (while remaining the state's Chief Engineer). However, his varied duties meant Crozet did not reside in Lexington, Virginia. In 1840, he and his family and five enslaved people lived in Richmond, Virginia. Ten years later, he and at least two much younger engineers boarded with plantation owner John T. Cocke in Albemarle County, Virginia. Blue Ridge Tunnels In 1839, Crozet surveyed the Blue Ridge Mountains and determined that the best way to allow the Blue Ridge Railroad, an extension of the Virginia Central Railroad, to cross the mountain would be through a series of four tunnels (from east to west: Greenwood Tunnel, Brookville Tunnel, Little Rock Tunnel, and Blue Ridge Tunnel) near Rockfish Gap at Afton Mountain. The long Blue Ridge Tunnel was opened in 1856, although rail service did not begin until April 1858. At that time, it was the longest tunnel in the United States and one of the longest in the world. Dug a decade before the invention of dynamite it was considered to be an "engineering wonder of the world" and was less than a half-foot (15.2 centimetres) off perfect alignment, as construction had proceeded from either end. Upon completion of the tunnels in 1858, the Blue Ridge Railroad ceased to exist, becoming a part of the Virginia Central Railroad. During the American Civil War, Confederate General Thomas Stonewall Jackson, a former instructor at VMI, used Crozet's tunnel to transfer his "foot cavalry" (comparable to a rapid deployment force today) from the Shenandoah Valley to the east side of the Blue Ridge quickly, to the puzzlement and consternation of Union military leaders. In 1868, the Virginia Central Railroad was merged with the Covington and Ohio Railroad to create the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway; the original tunnel served until it was replaced with a different alignment in 1944. Perhaps as mute testament to Crozet's extraordinary skills, despite advances in technology from the 1850s, the "new" mid 20th century tunnel was off-center, in comparison with only 6 inches in Crozet's earlier project. Death and legacy Crozet died in January 1864 at the residence of his daughter and son-in-law, as the Confederacy was losing the Civil War, but more than a year before its defeat. He was initially buried near his wife and children in Shockoe Hill Cemetery, but in 1942 his remains were reinterred in the Virginia Military