Known today for its beautiful scenery and vibrant history, Harpers Ferry National Historical Park is a modern destination for photography, especially in the fall when the leaves change. Bridal photos, graduations, engagements… But let’s rewind history about 160 years. Let’s visit the past: Harpers Ferry, VA, prior to West Virginia’s statehood.
The date is October 16.
Though the lower town is treeless at this time and lined with houses, shops, and the armory complex, the leaves on the surrounding mountains where timber hadn’t yet been felled for gunstocks are likely turning orange, red, and golden. Perhaps drifting down among the cool autumn breezes. And something notable and far more dangerous is about to happen. Can you take a guess?
American history enthusiasts might be thinking, “John Brown’s Raid!”
If we were speaking of the year, 1859, you’d be correct! But what if we are speaking of 1861? Yup. Two different events happened on October 16 in Harpers Ferry. One, a spark to gun powder igniting the Civil War—John Brown’s raid to inspire an uprising among enslaved peoples—followed by the first engagement of the Civil War in Harpers Ferry exactly two years later: on October 16, 1861. Six months after the Civil War had begun, the Battle of Bolivar Heights took place. It might not have been a large-scale battle like Gettysburg or Antietam, but it influenced the ever-dynamic history of the country, of the war, and importantly, the Ferry itself.
In fact, this once-thriving industrial town of mills, factories, and a federal armory and arsenal, benefiting from nature’s formidable hydropower upon the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers, became desolate during the Civil War. Jobs vanished in the wake of the burning of Harpers Ferry earlier that year, when Federal troops ordered the armory set aflame in hopes of ensuring that the Confederates didn’t come to possess its valuable weapons cache and manufacturing machinery. With the burning of the armory came the destruction of jobs and livelihoods. The need for employment prompted townsfolk to disperse. Those who remained did so under growing threat of bombardment and constantly shifting occupation. And the town itself, a vulnerable artery into southern territory due its location upon the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers, and nestled beneath the trinity of heights surrounding it—Loudoun, Maryland, and Bolivar Heights—sat either protected beneath whichever military force occupied them, or vulnerable to the opposing force that wished to gain control of them. He who controlled these Heights, controlled the town, and both belligerents knew it.
In the fall of 1861, an enormous storage of milled grain was piling up at the flour mill on Virginius Island owned by wealthy businessman Abraham Herr. With access to the railroad severed, grains being sent to the mill to be processed from the surrounding farms could not be shipped to market. Union troops began extracting large quantities of this rich resource at Herr’s donation, to ensure Confederates couldn’t control it. Growing frustration mounted within Confederate leadership, as they watched this badly needed food source being picked off, who then pled for reinforcements. By October, Union Colonel John White Geary considered his job of securing the grains nearly complete. On the night of October 15, he turned back 500 of his 600 men who’d crossed the Potomac from Maryland Heights to aid in the last extraction, confident that his mission had been a success… Except unbeknownst to him, a woman had “swam the Shenandoah”* that same night to inform Colonel Turner Ashby of the Confederacy that “the enemy were being reinforced, and the first aim would be to destroy”* the mills and factories along the river.
Geary, only 100 men strong, was attacked early on October 16 by Ashby after his pleas for more men resulted in the doubling of his numbers. Three columns—300 Confederate militia men moving in from nearby Charles Town to the west—outfitted with outdated arms and two cannons, emerged at dawn and began firing bullets upon Geary’s meager numbers. Despite trying to block each possible route to the town below, Geary’s troops were still pushed onto Bolivar Heights above the town. And yet, despite Ashby’s three charges and hours of trying to further overtake the Union troops, both forces had reached a stalemate. When more Union troops flanked Ashby’s men, prompting Geary to use his full front to launch a counterattack, Ashby was forced to retreat. The skirmish was done.
Yet both sides claimed degrees of victories. Geary, for his Union troops confiscating the grains and warding off capture or worse, and Ashby, when Geary’s men withdrew from Harpers Ferry shortly after that, leaving the town vulnerable. Geary returned to Harpers Ferry to destroy the nearby foundry. In response, Confederates, who had allowed Abraham Herr’s mill to remain unscathed despite his Union loyalties due to the wealth of resources he had once possessed, destroyed his mill.
Not only that, but General Thomas Jackson, aka “Stonewall Jackson” of the Confederacy was then ordered to take command of protecting the Shenandoah Valley to further prevent Union troops from controlling it again, a decision that would shape the direction of the war and impact the Ferry for some time to come.
Now, a lush paradise of trees that change to crisp yellows and browns in the fall, hiking trails, and historic buildings preserved within the National Park System, Harpers Ferry thrives once more as tourism and outdoorsmanship bring people to play, work, and live within its scenic bounds. Photographers come from near and far to capture its charm and beauty. But in the fall of 1861, it was far from picturesque, and the Civil War that would result in West Virginia’s statehood, change history, and see to the emancipation of millions of people, was just beginning.
Sources
*2012 Harpers Ferry Under Fire: A Border Town in the American Civil War, Frye, Dennis E. Harpers Ferry Park Association and The Donning Publishers Company
2019 Confluence: Harpers Ferry as Destiny, Frye, Dennis E. and Catherine Mägi Oliver. Harpers Ferry Park Association and HBP
“Island Mills Information Panel,” located in Harpers Ferry National Historical Park.
