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The next morning (4-14) I rode to Harpers
Ferry, West Virginia.
I had thought about riding this stretch on the
C&O Canal Towpath, but decided to take the highway
because it would be quicker and I had a lot to see today.
First of all, Harpers Ferry is a delightful little
town scenically located in the extreme eastern corner of
West Virginia where the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers come
together. Thomas Jefferson stopped here in 1783 before the
town was built and declared the sight of the two rivers to
be “worth a voyage across the Atlantic.”
A ferry service had been in place at Harpers Ferry
since 1733, but the town founding didn’t occur until
1796 when George Washington persuaded Congress to
establish a Federal armory and arsenal there.
By 1859, the town had several industries and a population of
almost 3000, but the Federal Armory was still the town’s major
business. The armory
produced more than 10,000 rifles and muskets each year and the
arsenal contained over 100,000 finished weapons.
The stage was set for the arrival of abolitionist John
Brown.
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John
Brown is one of the most controversial characters of American
history. As an
abolitionist, his mind and heart were on the right side of the
slavery issue. It was
his methods, however, that were quite questionable.
On one hand, who could blame him for taking things
into his own hands? After
all, many of the founding fathers had only “talked the talk”
and 19th century leaders had compromised time and again
on the issue of slavery in an effort to preserve the union:
·
George
Washington (slave-owner), April 12, 1786: “There is not a man
living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted
for the abolition of it (slavery), but there is only one proper
way and effectual mode by which it can be accomplished, and that
is by legislative authority.”
·
Thomas
Jefferson (slave-owner), April 1820: “The momentous question
(concerning the existence of slavery in the new State of
Missouri), like a fireball in the night, awakened me and filled me
with terror. I
considered it at once to be the knell of the union.”
·
Robert
E. Lee (slave-owner), December 12, 1856: “In this enlightened
age, there are few, I believe but what will acknowledge that
slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil in any
country.”
·
Missouri
Compromise (1820) – assured that one new slave state would
be added to the Union for each new free state that was added
·
Compromise
of 1850 – Congress admits California as a free state, but
places no restriction on slavery in the Utah and New Mexico
territories.
·
Kansas-Nebraska
Act (1854) – permitted residents of these new states to
choose “free” or “slave
·
Dred
Scott Decision (1857) – Supreme Court ruled that Negroes are
not entitled to the rights of Federal citizenship and that
Congress has no power to prohibit slavery.
On the other hand, is it ever acceptable to resort to
violence no matter how worthy the cause?
John Brown felt that it was.
By 1859, he was wanted in Kansas for the murder of five
men, and now had plans for an armed revolution of slaves.
As he pondered his attack on the arsenal at Harpers Ferry,
he no longer believed in the legislative process, but rather in
following what he understood to be the will of God.
·
John
Brown (abolitionist): “I hold God in infinitely greater
reverence than Congress.”
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Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry began on Sunday
evening, October 16, 1859 when he and his 21-man “army
of liberation” seized the armory and other strategic
points and took several prominent citizens hostage.
Local slaves did not join the revolution, however,
and Brown and his men were quickly forced to barricade
themselves in the armory fire-engine house (now known as
John Brown’s Fort). Troops under the command of Lt.
Colonel Robert E. Lee soon arrived from Washington, broke
down the barricades and captured or killed all of the
raiders. |
John Brown was captured and taken to nearby Charles
Town for trial. He
was found guilty of treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia,
conspiring with slaves to rebel, and murder.
He was hanged on December 2, 1859.
His raid and revolution had failed, but his trial and
execution focused the nation’s attention on the moral issue of
slavery. There would
be no further compromise on this issue in the north, and the
nation was now clearly headed toward civil war.
So in the larger sense, John Brown’s raid on
Harpers Ferry did not fail. As
Steven Vincent Benet wrote in John
Brown’s Body, “You can weigh John Brown’s body well
enough, but how and in what balance weigh John Brown”.
Very heavy, I believe.
History has now proven him to be perhaps the most
significant influence on the abolition of slavery in the United
States – far more influential than the hollow words of
Washington, Jefferson and other great leaders.
I departed Harpers Ferry via the Chesapeake
and Ohio Canal Towpath, a National Historical Park and unit of
the National Park Service. The
canal was on the other side of the Potomac from Harpers Ferry so I
had to take a walkway (part of a railroad trestle) across the
river, then negotiate a tricky spiral stairway down to the
towpath. Another
bicyclist (with no gear on his bike) caught up with me at the end
of the walkway, exchanged pleasantries, but did not offer to help
me get my bike down the stairway.
After that, I was kind of hoping to find him somewhere
along the towpath with a flat tire and a broken pump.
Sometime around the 1820s (my park brochure doesn’t
say just when), work began on both a canal and a railroad from
Washington to Cumberland, Maryland following the path of the
Potomac River. The
two were in competition, both seeking a passage to western wealth.
Both eventually reached Cumberland, but the railroad went
on to Wheeling on the Ohio River where it connected with barge
traffic from the west. The
heyday of canals in America was quite brief – just a few decades
– before the railroads put them out of business in the early
1900s.
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see full photographs.
towpath
stone aqueduct
Miller cornfield
Dunker Church
West Woods
Bloody Lane
Burnside Bridge
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The canals are an interesting part of American
history, however, and most have been preserved (at least
in part) for the enjoyment of today’s bikers and hikers.
The C&O Canal is probably the best preserved of
all with its entire 184 mile length proclaimed a National
Monument in 1961, then a National Historical Park in 1971.
The towpath is wide and firm and quite scenic. I
also saw a big ole wild turkey on the towpath.
It was a very nice place to ride my bike.
I got off the towpath near the town of Sharpsburg
where the canal crossed Antietam Creek on a beautiful
stone aqueduct built in 1834. I then rode up a very steep
hill on a little country road into Sharpsburg, then north
a mile or so to the Visitor Center for Antietam National
Battlefield.
The battle here on September 17, 1862 climaxed
General Lee’s first attempt to carry the war into the
North, and was the single bloodiest day of fighting during
the Civil War. Lee, fresh from victory at the second battle of Manassas in
August had moved his 40,000-man army across the Potomac
and into Maryland. Union
General George B. McClellan had followed, having had the
good fortune of obtaining a copy of the Confederate battle
plan (Lee’s Special Order No. 191).
His 87,000 man Army of the Potomac had followed Lee
and now squared off against the Confederates on opposite
sides of Antietam Creek.
The battle began at dawn on the 17th when
Union General Joseph Hooker began an artillery barrage on
Stonewall Jackson’s men in the Miller cornfield at the
northern end of the battleline. Hooker’s troops
advanced, driving the Confederates back, but failing to
break their lines. Throughout
the morning, heavy fighting took place in the cornfield,
around Dunker Church and in the West Woods where Union
General John Sedgwick’s division lost more than 2200 men
in less than a half-hour as they were ambushed on both
flanks by Jackson’s troops.
Meanwhile, General William French’s division had
moved west to support Sedgwick, but instead encountered
Confederates under General D. H. Hill posted along a
sunken road separating two farms.
For four hours, fighting raged along the road (now
known as Bloody Lane) until the southerners were finally
driven back. McClellan
failed to follow-up on this breakthrough, however, and
lost the advantage he had gained.
Further south, Union troops under General Ambrose E.
Burnside were held from crossing a bridge over Antietam
Creek (now called the Burnside Bridge) from 9:30am until
1:00pm by just 400 Georgia riflemen.
Once they finally crossed, they pushed the
Georgians nearly to Sharpsburg, threatening to sever
Lee’s avenue of retreat.
Then about 4:00pm General A. P. Hill’s division
arrived from Harpers Ferry and drove back the Federal
troops nearly to the bridge.
The fighting was over for the day with Federal losses
of 12,410 men and Confederate losses of 10,700.
There was no decisive victory, but the stalemate forced Lee
to retreat across the Potomac and postponed Great Britain’s
planned recognition of the Confederate government.
There were two other important side effects of the
battle at Antietam. First,
President Lincoln visited McClellan here just two weeks after the
battle and chastised him for not pursuing Lee as he fled back to
Virginia. Just two months later, Lincoln relieved him of command of the
Army of the Potomac. Second,
Lincoln used this “victory” as his opportunity to issue the Emancipation
Proclamation, which, on January 1, 1863, declared free all
slaves in States still in rebellion against the United States.
The war now had a dual purpose for northerners – preserve
the Union and end slavery.
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After touring the Visitor Center and watching the
film about the battle, I rode the eight-mile loop road around the
battlefield and through the National Cemetery.
It’s a pretty impressive place.
Clara
Barton was at Antietam in September 1862 and tended the
wounded during and after the battle. Her observation: “War is a dreadful thing…Oh, my God,
can’t this civil strife be brought to an end.”
Unfortunately, it lasted two more years after Antietam and
cost hundreds of thousands more lives beyond those who paid the
ultimate sacrifice here on these beautiful fields of northern
Maryland.
(Great
Adventures to Scenic Places)
