Organized and led by former Confederate general William Mahone (1826-1895), the 428-mile (689 km) line linked Norfolk with Bristol, Virginia by way of Suffolk, Petersburg, Lynchburg, and Salem.

It featured an innovative and durable roadbed through a portion of the Great Dismal Swamp and an arrow-straight 52-mile (84 km) tangent between Suffolk and Petersburg.

After Union leaders declined a request to surrender possession, he used an N&P train and other deception to bluff them into thinking large numbers of rebel troops were arriving, causing them to abandon the shipyard with no loss of life.

He was active in many campaigns and was an able leader during the war, best known as the hero of the Battle of the Crater in 1864 where he rallied troops and foiled an initial Union success during the Siege of Petersburg.

The war had demonstrated the need to consolidate resources and connections, and the stockholders of the South Side Railroad elected Mahone as president of their road also before the end of 1865.

When Mahone could not persuade the V&T board, he took another route to force consolidation, and worked diligently in lobbying the Virginia General Assembly, a part-owner of all three roads, to gain the legislation necessary to combine them into a single entity, and expand westward.

Unfortunately for Mahone's dreams, before much expansion could take place, the AM&O fell on hard times in the financial Panic of 1873 which negatively impacted almost all of the railroads.

Mahone forces had gathered what he thought would be sufficient funds to place a winning bid, but they were outbid by a surprise entry of a principal of a Philadelphia-based financial company, a previously unidentified competitor.

Mahone was able to arrange for a portion of the State's proceeds of the AM&O sale to help found a school to prepare teachers to help educate black children and former slaves.

A leader of the Readjuster Party, after leaving the railroad business, he became even more active in Virginia's politics and served as a Senator in the U.S. Congress from 1881 to 1887.

The new owners were E. W. Clark & Co., a private banking firm in Philadelphia which already owned a controlling interest in the Shenandoah Valley Railroad.

They knew older anthracite coal fields in northwestern New Jersey, southern New York, and northern Pennsylvania were playing out.

In the mid 20th century, N&W merged with long-time rival Virginian Railway in the Pocahontas coal region and grew even more in size and profitability by mergers with other rail carriers including Nickel Plate Road and Wabash in adjacent areas to form a system serving 14 states and a province of Canada between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mississippi River and Great Lakes with more than 7,000 miles (11,000 km) of trackage.

Mahone's trackbed through the Great Dismal Swamp, the 52 miles (84 km) tangent, and much of the rest of the AM&O route are still in service.