Harpers Ferry NHP, Harpers Ferry, West Virginia and Maryland

The tragedy of a country founded on freedom engaging in a war to keep some of its citizens enslaved and the tragedy of Americans fighting Americans, with hundreds of thousands of men killed by their fellow countrymen challenges our comprehension. Perhaps these two facts help illustrate the tragedy: on a single day in September 1862 at the Battle of Antietam, more than 23,000 men were killed or injured.  This totals more than all of the causalities in all of the battles that the United States had fought up to that time.  During the four years of the Civil War, over 600,000 men died -- with 360,000 killed from the North and 258,000 from the South. Many more died of their injuries in the months and years after combat.  The legacy of the Civil War continues as its sites still attract tourists from around the country and the world, as its battle tactics are still studied, and even after 150 years, as its causes and effects still stir heated debates.

Volunteer Burt leads a tour of Harpers Ferry to a group of tourists (Photo by Hunner)

A conflict that engulfed millions of people and lasted four years took a long time to develop. Driven by History will focus on the causes of the conflict over the next few weeks and has already posted a history of slavery in New York City at African Burial Ground For now, let’s focus on the beginnings of the armed conflict that occurred in Kansas and Harpers Ferry.

Harpers Ferry sits at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers. Thomas Jefferson passed by the valley with his daughter in 1783 on his way to serve in the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. He wrote in his Notes on the State of Virginia that it was “one of the most stupendous scenes in nature” and “worth a trip across the ocean” to witness.

The Thomas Jefferson Rock overlooking Harpers Ferry.  (Photo by Hunner)

President George Washington established a federal armory and arsenal there. In 1803, Meriwether Lewis obtained guns, powder horns, bullet molds, knives, and an iron frame for a portable boat to take on the Voyage of Discovery. It was an important place in the 19^th century.

A replica of Lewis's steel framed boat which he had made at Harpers Ferry (Photo by Hunner)

Dennis Frye, the Chief of Interpretation at Harpers Ferry, laid out its importance for me. First, Harpers Ferry was one of the earliest industrial centers in the U.S. The falls at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers provided ample water power for the mills that produced manufactured goods for the new republic. In 1819, John Hall used his government contract to make guns at Harpers Ferry with a revolutionary idea of manufacturing interchangeable parts that fit every musket.[1]

Muskets made at the Armory at Harpers Ferry (From exhibit at Visitors' Center)

Second, transportation innovations that transformed the United States came to Harpers Ferry in the 1830s. From Baltimore, the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad raced to the west through Harpers Ferry to tap into the verdant region in Ohio. The route through this valley continues as trains screeched by my RV park day and night in nearby Brunswick, Maryland.

Harpers Ferry and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad bridge over the Potomac River (From the exhibit at the Visitors' Center)

Third, the military importance of the gap through the Blue Ridge Mountains manifested itself even before the Civil War when John Brown raided the armory and arsenal at Harpers Ferry to supply a slave revolt. Some say that the Civil War started then. During the war, the town changed hands eight times since it served as a strategic gateway to both the Shenandoah Valley and as an invasion route to the north for the Confederates. Harpers Ferry had more than 1,400 days of contest during the Civil War, even more if you factor in John Brown’s raid in 1859. By comparison, the battles of Antietam and Gettysburg lasted one and three days respectively.

Troops crossing the Potomac on a temporary bridge during the Civil War (From the exhibit at the Visitors' Center)

And fourth, civil rights in the 20^th century got a start here with the Niagara Movement in 1906 that helped found the NAACP in 1909. From industrialization to transportation to war to civil rights,

Harpers Ferry saw some of the most significant events in our nation’s history in the 19^th and early 20^th century. So Harpers Ferry played an important role both before and after the Civil War. It is a town anchored in many of the main developments in our nation’s past.

Students at Storer College in Harpers Ferry (From exhibit at the Visitors' Center)

Let’s focus on the beginning of the Civil War with John Brown and his raid. For an opportunistic attack on a nexus of the nation that targeted slavery, Harpers Ferry was ideal for Brown.

Born in 1800 to a family that farmed the hard hills of Connecticut, Brown embraced Calvinism, an austere faith that fought sin and material attachments. He also embraced the precepts of the young nation, especially the promise that all men are created equal. His fierce belief in this founding principle fueled a passionate drive to rid the nation of slavery.

Portraits of John Brown over the years (From the exhibit at the Visitors' Center)

Brown arrived in Kansas Territory in October 1855. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 had opened up those territories to a popular vote on slavery. Pro and anti-slavery advocates moved in to contest the vote, and emotions ran hot. As one pro-slavery newspaper proclaimed: “We will continue to tar and feather, drown, lynch, and hang every white-livered abolitionist who dares to pollute our soil.”[2]

In May 1856, 400 “Border Ruffians” attacked the Free State enclave at Lawrence, Kansas and anti-slavery settlers elsewhere. In retaliation, Brown, with four sons and two other men, descended on pro-slavery homes along the Pottawatomie Creek where they hacked to death five men. Violence continued to flare in Kansas, including the "Battle of Osawatomie" where Brown and forty men fought with several hundred Border Ruffians. Then Brown, now nationally known as the fiery abolitionist of Bleeding Kansas, left the territory to hatch a bigger plan to abolish slavery.

Tragic Prelude by John Steuart Curry

Brown wanted to capture the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry with its 100,000 guns and distribute those weapons to start a slave rebellion. He recruited men, raised money from abolitionists, and infiltrated the area in July 1859. Brown declared: “I want to free all the Negros in this state. If the citizens interfere with me, I must only burn the town and have blood.”[3]

On Sunday evening, October 16, John Brown, two of his sons, and eighteen other men, including five African Americans, set out from a nearby farm through the autumnal chill to attack Harpers Ferry. They quickly captured the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad bridge across the Potomac River, while shooting Heyward Shepherd, who died the next day. Shepherd, a free black luggage porter for the B & O, was their first victim.

A tribute to Heyward Shepherd near where he was killed from the United Daughters of the Confederacy (Photo by Hunner) 

 Quickly, Brown’s raiders secured the railroad bridge and parts of the town and kidnaped several plantation owners. Local men began to snipe at the raiders, and then militia from nearby Charlestown arrived. They recaptured the B & O Railroad bridge and continued shooting at Brown and his men, who had holed up in the Armory, the arsenal across the street, and the Rifle Works down the road. Brown’s headquarters in the Armory was in the Engine House, a thick brick building where he held the captives. A few of Brown’s men, particularly in the Rifle Works, tried to slip away, and most were gunned down by the militia. Brown’s son Watson was shot as he escorted a hostage out in the street to negotiate. The local men had no patience for any raiders who wanted to free slaves.

A replica of the Engine House, Brown's headquarters during the raid. (Photo by Hunner)

Two future commanders of the Confederate Army responded to the raid. Lt. Jeb Stuart, a cavalryman with the Army, led the ninety marines sent to the conflict. From D.C., they arrived by train at Harpers Ferry around 11 pm on the 17^th.  After calling for surrender, which Brown ignored, the marines stormed the Engine House. In his report on the action, future Confederate General Robert E. Lee commented that in a few minutes, ten of Brown’s men died as well as five hostages, including the mayor of Harpers Ferry and one marine.[4]

A  drawing of the interior of the Engine House with Brown's raiders and their hostages. (From the exhibit at the Visitors' Center)

Punishment came swiftly to Brown and his surviving men. One week after the raid, Brown faced trial in Charlestown. After a week of testimony, the jury needed only forty-five minutes to convict him of treason and murder. On Dec. 2, 1859, John Brown was hung.

The raid failed to start a slave rebellion. But it did spark an increase in abolition action in the north, and in the south, increased fears of both slave revolts and northern attacks on slavery. Brown’s intention of forcing the issue of slavery onto center stage worked.

Harpers Ferry continued to see action in the Civil War. In April 1861, Virginian troops, led by Thomas (later dubbed Stonewall) Jackson, captured the town and sent it weapons-making machinery south to produce arms for the Confederacy. In the fall of 1862, Jackson and his troops returned, laid siege to the town, and forced the surrender of the federal troops there, the largest such Union surrender during the Civil War.

After the war, Free Will Baptists created Storer College to teach ex-slaves, which became a center for civil rights struggles in the later part of the 19^th and into the 20^th centuries. At the second meeting of the Niagara Movement at Storer College, W.E.B. DuBois called for changes, including the vote for African American men; an end to discrimination in public accommodations; that the 14^th and 15^th amendments be honored and that laws be enforced “against the rich as well as the poor… against white as well as black;” and that “we want our children educated.”[5] This meeting helped create the NAACP in 1909.

The second meeting of the Niagara Movement at Storer College. W.E.B. DuBois is seated, fourth from the right. (From the exhibit of the African American Museum at Harpers Ferry)

Harpers Ferry has played a significant role in our nation’s history.  As a transportation center, a gateway to the west, a site in the industrial revolution, a flash point for the Civil War, and a center for civil rights, this place instigated and witnessed major events in the 19^th and 20^th centuries. Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry helped realize of one of the founding promises of the country, that all men are created equal. Over the next few weeks, Driven by History will visit other Civil War parks will explore the history of the bloody conflict.

President Franklin Roosevelt signed legislation creating Harpers Ferry National Monument on June 29, 1944. It became a National Historical Park in 1963.

A monument to John Brown at Harpers Ferry with the Engine House on the left. (Photo by Hunner)

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[1] Horowitz, 69.

[2] Horwitz, 45.

[3] Horwitz, 131.

[4] Horwitz, 291-92.

[5] From the exhibit at the African American Museum at Harpers Ferry.