Originally aired on September 12, 1997 - In part 159 of our Civil War series, Virginia Tech history professor James Robertson says that both North and South fought over Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia with a determination that was sometimes desperation.
#159 – Harper’s Ferry
Here is a question in geography which city is farther north Washington, D. C., Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia or Cincinnati, Ohio? The answer is Harper’s Ferry.
The fact that it was the northernmost point of the Confederate States of America was the psychological reason for its importance to the wartime south; other factors made Harper’s Ferry vital to both sides.
The village was at the juncture of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers. Being at the mouth of the Shenandoah made the town the northern door to the agriculturally rich valley of Virginia. Along the banks of the Potomac at Harper’s Ferry was one of the largest arsenals in the south. The weak Confederacy needed every firearm it could find.
The Potomac River was a natural pass through much of the Appalachian Mountains. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, the nation’s busiest rail-line passed through the ferry. So did the Chesapeake and Ohio canal. This 150-mile engineering wonder was a major commercial avenue. The railroad and the canal were lifelines between Washington and the lands beyond the mountains.
John Brown’s 1859 raid on Harper’s Ferry perhaps gave the town a symbolic value in excess of its military importance. In fact, one could say that the town as a military target was a disaster waiting to happen. Harper’s Ferry did point into northern territory like a spear, but it was a spear without any support.
In addition as any good field officer of that day could discern at once Harper’s Ferry was indefensible. Nearby mountains squeezed the place on all sides. Much of the town in fact was on the side of one of those heights. Artillery placed on the high ground could blast the ferry at point-blank range from every direction.
Nevertheless both North and South in the Civil War fought over Harper’s Ferry with a determination that was sometimes desperation. In 1861, Virginia militias seized the town within hours after the Old Dominion left the Union. Colonel Thomas J. Jackson, the man later called “Stonewall”, got Harper’s Ferry in reasonably good order. Confederates then fell back to Winchester and relinquished the ferry to Union forces.
Thereafter the place became the ball in a military ping-pong game. For example, in September, 1862, “Stonewall” Jackson returned with a veteran force. He unleashed a short, but intense bombardment that gained the ferry and its Union garrison the capture of 12,500 Federals was the largest surrender of American soldiers ever made until Bataan and Corregidor in World War II.
Twenty-eight different commanders were in charge of the ferry during the four years of civil war. The railroad and the canal both were severed in Leesville on a regular basis. The 900-foot railroad bridge across the Potomac was blown up, set afire, and reconstructed nine times. The lower part of Harper’s Ferry along the riverbanks underwent major rebuilding on three occasions during the war.
When armies were not moving against it the town endured continual harassment from mounted partisan rangers. And when neither side was there Harper’s Ferry was a no-man’s land at the mercy of bushwhackers who showed no mercy.
An observer noted at the end of the war that: “rainwater flowed down the center of abandoned streets, weeds occupied plots where homes once stood, everywhere in Harper’s Ferry was rubbish, filth and stench.” The only buildings left standing intact were the Catholic Church and the engine house where John Brown and his men made their last stand.
Citizens worked hard to put Harper’s Ferry back together again. Five years after the war in the autumn of 1870 a great flood struck and swept away the downtown area. Perhaps as many thought old John Brown had placed a curse on the hillside community.