The war that John Brown predicted would come, and which his raid helped
to precipitate, began in April 1861. When it ended almost 4 years to the
day later, slavery had been destroyed along with some 600,000 lives and
millions of dollars worth of property. Among the casualties of the war
was Harpers Ferry. The town’s strategic position on the Baltimore and
Ohio Railroad at the northern end of the Shenandoah Valley made it a
prime target for both Union and Confederate forces. It changed hands
again and again, and by war’s end in 1865 the place was a shambles.
As early as February 1862 a young Union staff officer assigned to the
Harpers Ferry area could write of the town: “The appearance of ruin by
war and fire was awful. Charred ruins were all that remain of the
splendid public works, arsenals, workshops and railroads, stores,
hotels, and dwelling houses all mingled in one common destruction.” Much
the same observation was made 3 years later in the summer of 1865 by
John T. Trowbridge, a New England writer, during a tour of the South:
“[T]he town is the reverse of agreeable. It is said to have been a
pleasant and picturesque place formerly. The streets were well graded,
and the hill-sides above were graced with terraces and trees. But war
has changed all. Freshets tear down the centre of the streets, and the
hill-sides present only ragged growths of weeds. The town itself lies
half in ruins.... Of the bridge across the Shenandoah only the ruined
piers are left; still less remains of the old bridge over the Potomac.
And all about the town are rubbish, filth and stench.”
The once-imposing armory complex along the Potomac River and the rifle
works on Hall Island in the Shenandoah were burned-out hulks. Only the
armory enginehouse remained basically intact, “like a monument which no
Rebel hands were permitted to demolish.” Large sections of the town had
been burned by various troop contingents to prevent their use by enemy
soldiers. Many homes, churches, schools, and business establishments
were damaged beyond repair by shot and shell fired from the surrounding
heights. Still other buildings, subjected to long military use, were on
the verge of ruin. The industries on Virginius Island—the iron foundry,
the flour mill, the sawmill, the machine shops, the cotton mill—were
also gone, and Harpers Ferry no longer had the activity and bustle of an
economically healthy community.
Besides the material damage inflicted by powerful weaponry and by the
seemingly endless procession of soldiers who filched or requisitioned
everything that could be carried away, the town suffered an even greater
loss—its people. During the war most of the townspeople moved away, some
to escape the dangers of military operations, some to seek employment
elsewhere after the armory and the industries were destroyed, and some
to join one or the other opposing armies. Many never came back. Those
who did return found their town in ruins and themselves the citizens of
a new State.
In 1861 the people in the mountainous western counties of Virginia
strongly opposed secession. When the rest of the State voted
overwhelmingly in a statewide referendum on May 23, 1861, to withdraw
from the Federal Union, the loyal western residents, in a series of
conventions at Wheeling, voted to “secede” from Virginia and set up
their own State. The bill for admission passed Congress on December 11,
1862, and on June 30, 1863, by Presidential proclamation, West Virginia
became the 35th State. For years, however, many Jefferson County
residents refused to use “West” as part of the designation.
Harpers Ferry never recovered from the devastation of the Civil War.
Staring at the stark chimneys and charred remains of once impressive
buildings, one of the townspeople concluded: “This place will never be
anything again unless the government rebuilds the armory—and it is
doubtful if that is ever done.” The Government never did, and the ground
on which it stood was auctioned off in 1869. Mills and factories
remained closed. The railroad did a small percentage of its previous
business. Hopes for a renewal of the town’s former prosperity were
dashed in 1870 when a flood destroyed or badly damaged nearly every
building on Virginius Island and along the south side of Shenandoah
Street. Subsequent floods destroyed still more of the town and ruined
the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. The canal was finally abandoned after the
flood of 1924.
Inundated too often by high water, the residents of Harpers Ferry
eventually left the old buildings in the lower town and moved up the
heights to the high ground of Camp Hill and toward Bolivar. For years
the old shops and stores, those that remained, stood empty, neglected,
and deteriorating. When Harpers Ferry became a national historical area,
the National Park Service began an intensive campaign to preserve the
fragile remains of the 18th- and 19th-century industries, homes,
churches, stores, and shops, and to restore much of the old town to its
pre-Civil War appearance, a time when it was at its peak as a thriving,
bustling industrial community and transportation center.
Today, while much of the old historical town remains, few of the
structures that figured prominently in John Brown’s raid survive. (See
maps on pp. 29 and 30.) The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad bridge across
the Potomac, by which Brown and his raiders entered Harpers Ferry in
October 1859, was destroyed by Confederate soldiers early in the Civil
War. More modern structures span the river now, but the stone supports
of the old bridge can still be seen. Nothing at all remains of the
bridge across the Shenandoah. The stone piers now standing in the river
near the Point section of the town are from a later structure.
The ruins of the armory buildings stood for many years after the war and
eventually disappeared. In 1893 the site itself disappeared under 30
feet of fill when the B & O Railroad changed the line of its tracks. The
outlines of two of the armory buildings have been marked by flat stones
and the spot where the enginehouse was located is marked by a small
monument. The enginehouse itself (now called “John Brown’s Fort”) stands
nearby on the old arsenal grounds, and is little changed from its
appearance at the time of the raid. Here also can be seen the excavated
remains of the small U.S. arsenal and some of the partially exposed
burned muskets destroyed when the building was gutted by Federal troops
in April 1861.
In February 1862 Federal soldiers burned the Point area of Harpers Ferry
to keep Confederate sharpshooters from using the buildings. Among the
structures destroyed were the railroad depot, the water tower around
which Mayor Fontaine Beckham was peering when he was shot by one of the
raiders, several stores and shops, the Potomac Restaurant, the Wager
House Hotel, and the Gault House Saloon. The Wager House (not to be
confused with another structure of the same name that still exists) was
the scene of several notable events. It was here that many of the
wounded were carried, including two of the raiders, Aaron Stevens and
William Thompson. Many of the militiamen did their “best fighting” at
its bar. From the Wager House porch, Gov. Henry Wise of Virginia read
letters taken from Brown’s men to the angered townspeople. Wise also
lived here during his brief stay in Harpers Ferry. Mrs. John Brown
stayed here when she came to Harpers Ferry in December 1859 for her last
visit with her husband, and it was here that she received his body after
the execution.
The Shenandoah islands are deserted today except for the line of the
Winchester and Potomac Railroad. All of the buildings are gone now
except for the foundations of some of the mills and the retaining walls
of the rifle factory, nestled in among the weeds, brush, and trees. Many
disappeared through neglect after the industries were destroyed during
the Civil War, some washed away in the many floods with which Harpers
Ferry has been plagued, and others, like Herr’s flour mill and the rifle
works, were deliberately destroyed by Union and Confederate troops.
Several structures associated with the raid still exist outside Harpers
Ferry. The courthouse at Charles Town, W. Va., is little changed since
John Brown was tried and sentenced there more than a century ago. The
Kennedy farm, Brown’s headquarters during the months he was planning the
raid, lies in the Maryland countryside about 5 miles from Harpers Ferry.
Col. Lewis Washington’s home, “Beallair,” which several raiders broke
into on the night of October 16 and took its owner hostage, stands near
Halltown, about 4 miles west of Harpers Ferry. And nearby, at the foot
of Alstadt Hill, west of Bolivar, is the home of John H. Alstadt,
another hostage taken by Brown’s men on October 16.
APPENDIX
The Capture of John Brown[1]
by Israel Green
At noon of Monday, October 18, 1859, Chief Clerk Walsh, of the Navy
Department, drove rapidly into the Washington Navy-yard, and, meeting
me, asked me how many marines we had stationed at the barracks available
for immediate duty. I happened to be the senior officer present and in
command that day. I instantly replied to Mr. Walsh that we had ninety
men available, and then asked him what was the trouble. He told me that
Ossawatomie Brown, of Kansas, with a number of men, had taken the
arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, and was then besieged there by the Virginia
State troops. Mr. Walsh returned speedily to the Navy Department
building, and, in the course of an hour, orders came to me from
Secretary Tousey to proceed at once to Harper’s Ferry and report to the
senior officer; and, if there should be no such officer at the Ferry, to
take charge and protect the government property. With a detachment of
ninety marines, I started for Harper’s Ferry that afternoon on the 3:30
train, taking with me two howitzers. It was a beautiful, clear autumn
day, and the men, exhilarated by the excitement of the occasion, which
came after a long, dull season of confinement in the barracks, enjoyed
the trip exceedingly.
At Frederick Junction I received a dispatch from Colonel Robert E. Lee,
who turned out to be the army officer to whom I was to report. He
directed me to proceed to Sandy Hook, a small place about a mile this
side of the Ferry, and there await his arrival. At ten o’clock in the
evening he came up on a special train from Washington. His first order
was to form the marines out of the car, and march from the bridge to
Harper’s Ferry. This we did, entering the enclosure of the arsenal
grounds through a back gate. At eleven o’clock Colonel Lee ordered the
volunteers to march out of the grounds, and gave the control inside to
the marines, with instructions to see that none of the insurgents
escaped during the night. There had been hard fighting all the preceding
day, and Brown and his men kept quiet during the night. At half-past six
in the morning Colonel Lee gave me orders to select a detail of twelve
men for a storming party, and place them near the engine-house in which
Brown and his men had intrenched themselves. I selected twelve of my
best men, and a second twelve to be employed as a reserve. The
engine-house was a strong stone [actually brick] building, which is
still in a good state of preservation at the Ferry, in spite of the
three days’ fighting in the building by Brown and his men, and the
ravages of the recent war between the States. The building was ...
perhaps thirty feet by thirty-five. In the front were two large double
doors, between which was a stone abutment. Within were two
old-fashioned, heavy fire-engines, with a hose-cart and reel standing
between them, and just back of the abutment between the doors. They were
double-battened doors, very strongly made, with heavy wrought-iron
nails. Lieutenant J. E. B. Stewart [Stuart], afterwards famous as a
cavalry commander on the side of the South, accompanied Colonel Lee as a
volunteer aid. He was ordered to go with a part of the troops to the
front of the engine-house and demand the surrender of the insurgent
party. Colonel Lee directed him to offer protection to Brown and his
men, but to receive no counter-proposition from Brown in regard to the
surrender. On the way to the engine-house, Stewart and myself agreed
upon a signal for attack in the event that Brown should refuse to
surrender. It was simply that Lieutenant Stewart would wave his hat,
which was then, I believe, one very similar to the famous chapeau which
he wore throughout the war. I had my storming party ranged alongside of
the engine-house, and a number of men were provided with sledge-hammers
with which to batter in the doors. I stood in front of the abutment
between the doors. Stewart hailed Brown and called for his surrender,
but Brown at once began to make a proposition that he and his men should
be allowed to come out of the engine-house and be given the length of
the bridge start, so that they might escape. Suddenly Lieutenant Stewart
waved his hat, and I gave the order to my men to batter in the door.
Those inside fired rapidly at the point where the blows were given upon
the door. Very little impression was made with the hammers, as the doors
were tied on the inside with ropes and braced by the hand-brakes of the
fire-engines, and in a few minutes I gave the order to desist. Just then
my eye caught sight of a ladder, lying a few feet from the engine-house,
in the yard, and I ordered my men to catch it up and use it as a
battering-ram. The reserve of twelve men I employed as a supporting
column for the assaulting party. The men took hold bravely and made a
tremendous assault upon the door. The second blow broke it in. This
entrance was a ragged hole low down in the right-hand door, the door
being splintered and cracked some distance upward. I instantly stepped
from my position in front of the stone abutment, and entered the opening
made by the ladder. At the time I did not stop to think of it, but upon
reflection I should say that Brown had just emptied his carbine at the
point broken by the ladder, and so I passed in safely. Getting to my
feet, I ran to the right of the engine which stood behind the door,
passed quickly to the rear of the house, and came up between the two
engines. The first person I saw was Colonel Lewis Washington, who was
standing near the hose-cart, at the front of the engine-house. On one
knee, a few feet to the left, knelt a man with a carbine in his hand,
just pulling the lever to reload.
“Hello, Green,” said Colonel Washington, and he reached out his hand to
me. I grasped it with my left hand, having my saber uplifted in my
right, and he said, pointing to the kneeling figure, “This is
Ossawatomie.”
As he said this, Brown turned his head to see who it was to whom Colonel
Washington was speaking. Quicker than thought I brought my saber down
with all my strength upon his head. He was moving as the blow fell, and
I suppose I did not strike him where I intended, for he received a deep
saber cut in the back of the neck. He fell senseless on his side, then
rolled over on his back. He had in his hand a short Sharpe’s-cavalry
carbine. I think he had just fired as I reached Colonel Washington, for
the marine who followed me into the aperture made by the ladder received
a bullet in the abdomen, from which he died in a few minutes. The shot
might have been fired by some one else in the insurgent party, but I
think it was from Brown. Instinctively as Brown fell I gave him a saber
thrust in the left breast. The sword I carried was a light uniform
weapon, and, either not having a point or striking something hard in
Brown’s accouterments, did not penetrate. The blade bent double.
By that time three or four of my men were inside. They came rushing in
like tigers, as a storming assault is not a play-day sport. They
bayoneted one man skulking under the engine, and pinned another fellow
up against the rear wall, both being instantly killed. I ordered the men
to spill no more blood. The other insurgents were at once taken under
arrest, and the contest ended. The whole fight had not lasted over three
minutes. My only thought was to capture, or, if necessary, kill, the
insurgents, and take possession of the engine-house.
I saw very little of the situation within until the fight was over. Then
I observed that the engine-house was thick with smoke, and it was with
difficulty that a person could be seen across the room. In the rear,
behind the left-hand engine, were huddled the prisoners whom Brown had
captured and held as hostages for the safety of himself and his men.
Colonel Washington was one of these. All during the fight, as I
understood afterward, he kept to the front of the engine-house. When I
met him he was as cool as he would have been on his own veranda
entertaining guests. He was naturally a very brave man. I remember that
he would not come out of the engine-house, begrimed and soiled as he was
from his long imprisonment, until he had put a pair of kid gloves upon
his hands. The other prisoners were the sorriest lot of people I ever
saw. They had been without food for over sixty hours, in constant dread
of being shot, and were huddled up in the corner where lay the body of
Brown’s son and one or two others of the insurgents who had been killed.
Some of them have endeavored to give an account of the storming of the
engine-house and the capture of Brown, but none of the reports have been
free from a great many misstatements, and I suppose that Colonel
Washington and myself were the only persons really able to say what was
done. Other stories have been printed by people on the outside,
describing the fight within. What they say must be taken with a great
deal of allowance, for they could not have been witnesses of what
occurred within the engine-house. One recent account describes me as
jumping over the right-hand engine more like a wild beast than a
soldier. Of course nothing of the kind happened. The report made by
Colonel Lee at the time, which is now on file in the War department,
gives a more succinct and detailed account than any I have seen.
I can see Colonel Lee now, as he stood on a slight elevation about forty
feet from the engine-house, during the assault. He was in civilian
dress, and looked then very little as he did during the war. He wore no
beard, except a dark mustache, and his hair was slightly gray. He had no
arms upon his person, and treated the affair as one of no very great
consequence, which would be speedily settled by the marines. A part of
the scene, giving color and life to the picture, was the bright blue
uniform of the marines. They wore blue trousers then, as they do now,
and a dark-blue frock-coat. Their belts were white, and they wore French
fatigue caps. I do not remember the names of the twelve men in the
storming party, nor can I tell what became of them in later life. We had
no use for the howitzers, and, in fact, they were not taken from the
car.
Immediately after the fight, Brown was carried out of the engine-house,
and recovered consciousness while lying on the ground in front. A detail
of men carried him up to the paymaster’s office, where he was attended
to and his wants supplied. On the following day, Wednesday, with an
escort, I removed him to Charleston [Charles Town], and turned him over
to the civil authorities. No handcuffs were placed upon him, and he
supported himself with a self-reliance and independence which were
characteristic of the man. He had recovered a great deal from the
effects of the blow from my saber, the injury of which was principally
the shock, as he only received a flesh wound. I had little conversation
with him, and spent very little time with him.
I have often been asked to describe Brown’s appearance at the instant he
lifted his head to see who was talking with Colonel Washington. It would
be impossible for me to do so. The whole scene passed so rapidly that it
hardly made a distinct impression upon my mind. I can only recall the
fleeting picture of an old man kneeling with a carbine in his hand, with
a long gray beard falling away from his face, looking quickly and keenly
toward the danger that he was aware had come upon him. He was not a
large man, being perhaps five feet ten inches when he straightened up in
full. His dress, even, I do not remember distinctly. I should say that
he had his trousers tucked in his boots, and that he wore clothes of
gray—probably no more than trousers and shirt. I think he had no hat
upon his head.
None of the prisoners were hurt. They were badly frightened and somewhat
starved. I received no wounds except a slight scratch on one hand as I
was getting through the hole in the door. Colonel Lee and the people on
the outside thought I was wounded. Brown had, at the time, only five or
six fighting men, and I think he himself was the only one who showed
fight after I entered the engine-house. There were no provisions in the
building, and it would have been only a question of time when Brown
would have had to surrender. Colonel Washington was the only person
inside the house that I knew.
I have been asked what became of Brown’s carbine. That I do not know. My
sword was left in Washington, among people with whom I lived, and I lost
trace of it. A few years ago, after having come out of the war and gone
west to Dakota, where I now live, I received a letter from a gentleman
in Washington, saying that he knew where the sword was, and that it was
still bent double, as it was left by the thrust upon Brown’s breast. He
said that it was now a relic of great historic value, and asked me to
assent to the selling of it upon the condition that I should receive a
portion of the price of the weapon. To me the matter had very little
interest, and I replied indifferently. Since then I have heard nothing
of the matter. I presume the saber could be found somewhere in
Washington.