Harper's Ferry, West Virginia

Harpers Ferry, a small West Virginia town on a river promontory, is the site of historical events of a significance disproportionate to the town's small geographic dimensions. The town hosted the first successful application of interchangeable manufacture, the arrival of the first successful American railroad, John Brown's attack on slavery, the largest surrender of Federal troops during the Civil War, and the education of former slaves in one of the earliest integrated schools in the United States.

On the eve of The Civil War, Harper's Ferry was part of Virginia. Residents of the western counties of Virginia chose not to secede along with the rest of the state, and so Harper's Ferry joined the union as part of the new state of West Virginia on June 20, 1863. The state then provided 31,872 regular army troops to the Union Army, 133 sailors and marines and 196 US Colored Troops between 1861 and 1865.

The town sits at the crossroads of two rivers, the Potomac and the Shenandoah. In the nineteenth century, the presence of two major railroads, the regional Baltimore and Ohio (B&O) and the statewide Winchester and Potomac and the development of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal (C&O) added to its critical importance.

George Washington had established the nation's second national armory there in 1796. Less than 24 hours after Virginia seceded from the Union on April 18, 1961, Federal soldiers set fire to that armory to keep it out of Confederate hands. The town remained a pivotal and strategic linchpin throughout the war as opposing troops fought to control the transportation hub. Federal and Confederate armies gained and lost control of the town eight times between 1861 and 1865 and destroyed and replaced the railroad bridge crossing the Potomac nine times.

Transportation Networks

The 184.5-mile long C&O Canal was the oldest of the transportation networks through the area. Its route paralleled the unnavigable Potomac River and linked Cumberland, Maryland, with the nation's capital. A system of locks permitted boats pulled by mule teams along the canal towpath to pass down successively lower levels from the mountains to tidewater.

The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad ran beside the C&O Canal and the local feeder line of the Winchester and Potomac Railroad intersected with the larger line. Developed by Baltimore merchants in 1827 to compete with the canal and to ensure Baltimore's access to western markets and materials, the B&O was the first American railroad line. The tracks to Harper's Ferry were finished in 1834, one year after the C&O canal opened at the town, and two years before the Winchester and Potomac railroad was completed in 1836.

More information about the history of Harper's Ferry appears on the National Park Service site at http://www.nps.gov/hafe/history.htm.

Background and current information about the C&O Canal appears a t http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/twhp/wwwlps/lessons/10c&o/10c&o.htm.