Existing comment:
Why Harpers Ferry?
In 1862, Harpers Ferry was a hollow shell of its former self. Only 100 families remained from a pre-war population of nearly 3,000 people. The destruction of the United States Armory and Arsenal in the first days of the war eliminated the town's largest employer. Downtown Harpers Ferry and the surrounding factories were out of business or in ruins. Churches had become hospitals and gardens had become graveyards. One soldier wrote, "The entire place is not actually worth ten dollars." If the town was such a wasteland, why did an important battle take place here in 1862?
Strategic military significance had replaced the town's economic importance. General Robert E. Lee's invasion depended upon the Shenandoah Valley as a line of communication and supply. But the Union troops guarding the railroad across the Valley at Martinsburg and Harpers Ferry did not withdraw before the Southern advance as Lee had expected. Something had to be done.
Lee devised a plan that split his army into four parts. He sent three columns under Jackson to capture the Union garrison at Harpers Ferry and clear the Shenandoah Valley. Lee's plan, known as Special Orders 191, targeted Harpers Ferry as the key to the future of the Maryland Campaign.
"Gen. Jackson and Gen. Hill told me personally, they had rather take it [Harpers Ferry] forty times than to undertake to defend it once."
-- Union Lieutenant Henry Binney in a letter to the Boston Journal, September 27, 1862 |