Best known as the site of John Brown’s raid in 1859, Harpers Ferry (then in Virginia and spelled Harper’s Ferry) was an essential strategic possession for both the Union and Confederate armies during the CiViL War, changing hands eight times between 1861 and 1865.
A place of great natural beauty, Harpers Ferry is located on a wedge of land that separates the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers at the northern end of Virginia’s rich Shenandoah Valley. In 1796 President George Washington selected the town for one of the federal armories, and the manufacture of weapons became the basis of its economy.
Bordering on Pennsylvania and Maryland, Harpers Ferry in the late 1850s was a prosperous and growing place of nearly 3,000 people. The U. S. Armory was the biggest employer, and the 250 men who worked in the factories turned out roughly 10,000 rifles and muskets per year. There were other industrial concerns as well—an iron foundry, a flour mill, and cotton mill—all powered by the water flowing from the Shenandoah River. Goods and people were transported in and out of town courtesy of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. In short, Harpers Ferry was one of the rare industrial villages in the South. Its citizens were a diverse group of small businessmen, native-born working class, immigrants, slaves, and 150 free African Americans. plantations and farms were in the surrounding countryside.
Harpers Ferry was also a quiet and harmonious place until 1859, when radical abolitionist Brown selected it as the target for his infamous raid. Attracted by the armory, the slaves, and the geography, Brown and his men planned to seize the munitions and ignite a revolution that would end slavery. His scheme was cut short when armed
Engraving of the Harpers Ferry insurrection depicting the U. S. Marines storming the engine house while John Brown and his followers fire through holes in the doors (Library of Congress)
Townsmen, local militia, and the U. S. Marines led by Lt. Col. Robert E. Lee ended the ill-fated invasion. Brown and several members of his party were tried and hanged for the attack. The incident at Harpers Ferry gripped the nation and further polarized North and South.
When the Civil War broke out, Harpers Ferry became a tragic victim of the “brothers’ war.” Forced to choose between fighting for the North or the South, most of its citizens fled, leaving the town almost empty. In April 1861 Union forces decided to abandon the arsenal. Union lieutenant Roger Jones, garrison commander at Harpers Ferry, ordered his men to set the armory on fire and retreat to the north. Jones and his men successfully destroyed the main arsenal and 15,000 guns. However, the local citizens put out the fire before it spread to the remainder of the armory. Virginia forces led by Thomas J. (Stonewall) Jackson entered the town and saved the remaining firearms and factory equipment. They shipped the valuable materials to the Confederate armories in Richmond, Virginia, and Fayetteville, North Carolina.
Harpers Ferry would change hands seven more times over the course of the war. The Battle of Harpers Ferry on September 15, 1862, was a vital part of Robert E. Lee’s Maryland campaign. Stonewall Jackson, Maj. Gen. Lafayette McLaws, and Brig. Gen. John G. Walker directed a successful assault on Harpers Ferry, which was occupied by thousands of Union soldiers. The largest surrender of Union forces during the war, Confederate troops captured 12,419 men, thousands of firearms, and 70 artillery pieces. The Battle of Harpers Ferry proved a crucial morale boost for the Confederates, who would lose the Battle of Antietam two days later.
The rebels moved out of Harpers Ferry after Antietam, and Union troops again occupied the town. On October 12, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln visited Harpers Ferry, as well as his troops positioned on the craggy mountains called Maryland Heights above the town. Toward the end of the war, Harpers Ferry became an important supply base for Union operations in the Shenandoah Valley.
After 1865 Harpers Ferry was abandoned, since the war had left the town in ruins. By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Harpers Ferry had become an important stop for African-American leaders such as Frederick Douglass and W. E. B. Du Bois, who proclaimed the importance of black people’s contribution to the Civil War and to the American nation. Significantly, the memory of John Brown as an abolitionist hero and martyr to the cause of freedom was commemorated in positive ways. Today, the National Park Service preserves the past of Harpers Ferry by operating museums, tours, and demonstrations for the thousands of tourists who crowd the narrow winding streets of this historic place.
See also abolition.
Further reading: Paul Finkelman, ed., His Soul Goes Marching On: Responses to John Brown and the Harpers Ferry Raid (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1995); Chester G. Hearn, Six Years of Hell: Harper’s Ferry during the Civil War (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1996); James V. Murfin, The Gleam of Bayonets: The Battle of Antietam and the Maryland Campaign of 1862 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1982); Truman John Nelson, The Old Man: John Brown at Harpers Ferry (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1973).
—Fiona Galvin
World History
