Civil War Harpers Ferry Vacation Photographs

Harpers Ferry is an historic town in West Virginia. It is the location of The Point, or the location where the Potomac River and the Shenandoah River meet.

In 1783, Thomas Jefferson visited Harpers Ferry. He viewed the passage of the Potomac though the Blue Ridge Mountains from a rock which is now named Jefferson Rock. Jefferson called the site "perhaps one of the most stupendous scenes in nature.”

In 1796, the federal government purchased a parcel of land from the heirs of Robert Harper and, in 1799, construction began on the United States Armory and Arsenal at Harpers Ferry. This was one of only two such facilities in the US, and between them they produced most of the small arms for the US Army. The town was transformed into an industrial center: Between 1801 and its destruction in 1861 to prevent its capture during the Civil War, the Armory produced more than 600,000 muskets, rifles, and pistols.

In 1859, the radical abolitionist John Brown led a group of 21 men in a raid on the Arsenal at Harpers Ferry. John Brown's men were quickly pinned down by local citizens and militia, and forced to take refuge in the engine house adjacent to the armory. This engine house became known as John Brown's Fort.

Then-U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Robert E. Lee was commander of the Federal forces of Marines deployed to Harpers Ferry to deal with the John Brown situation, along with Lieutenant J. E. B. Stuart as his aide-de-camp. They stormed John Brown's Fort and captured most of the raiders, killing a few and suffering a single casualty themselves. Brown was tried for murder and treason against the state of Virginia, convicted, and hanged in nearby Charles Town. Many northerners sympathized with John Brown's abolitionist beliefs even as they chose to ignore his terrorist behaviors. The raid was ultimately a catalyst for the Civil War.

The Civil War was a terrible time for Harpers Ferry, which changed hands eight times between 1861 and 1865. When Virginia seceded in April 1861 the US garrison attempted to burn the arsenal and destroy the machinery. Locals saved the equipment, which was later transferred to a more secure location in Richmond. Arms production never returned to Harpers Ferry. Because of the town's strategic location on the railroad and at the northern end of the Shenandoah Valley, both Union and Confederate troops moved through Harpers Ferry frequently. The town's garrison of 14,000 Federal troops played a key role in the Confederate invasion of Maryland in September 1862. General Robert E. Lee did not want to continue on to Pennsylvania without capturing the town, which was on his supply line and would control one of his possible routes of retreat if the invasion did not go well. Dividing his army of approximately 40,000 into four sections, he used the cover of the mountains and sent three columns under Stonewall Jackson to surround and capture the town. The Battle of Harpers Ferry started with light fighting September 13 to capture the Maryland Heights to the northeast while John Walker moved back over the Potomac to capture Loudoun Heights south of town. After an artillery bombardment on September 14 and 15, the Federal garrison surrendered. Lee, because of the delay in capturing Harpers Ferry, and the movement of Federal forces west, was forced to regroup at the town of Sharpsburg, leading two days later to the Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest single day in American military history. The Confederate forces from Harpers Ferry arrived in Antietam just in time to thwart the final Union attack against Robert E. Lee, turning this battle from a Union victory to a tactical stalemate.

Shortly after the end of the Civil War, Harpers Ferry, along with all of both Berkeley and Jefferson Counties, was separated from Virginia and incorporated into West Virginia.

Today Harpers Ferry is primarily a tourist attraction. The town of Harpers Ferry is part of the Harpers Ferry National Park, which includes several locations including Bolivar Heights Battlefield.