Monday: Harpers Ferry, September 1862

Thanks to my competitive nature , my iPhone spokesmodel talents and my weather map for all our cities, I’m the weather girl! Each night Colonel Historian asks me what the next day’s weather holds.  I announce the temperature and sun status so my bus-mates know how to dress.  Jeez, people can get ticked about weather.  I promised them mid-80s for today and they showed up in shorts, but shivered in the morning’s mid-50s temperatures.  I was shunned, till that old sun and humidity cranked up and they’d ditched the sweaters and recognized my innate superiority.  Ya gotta be tough in a job like this.

We’re heading north, following the Confederates’ push.  Lee has left Manassas and wants to make his first invasion of the North.  He sent Stonewall Jackson to Harpers Ferry, an industrial city, maker of firearms, outfitter of Lewis and Clark, at the convergence of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers and three states (Maryland, Virginia and what would become West Virginia).  It was a return trip for Robert E. Lee (my personal fave) who, in 1859 had come at the head of a unit of Marines to get John Brown who wanted the 100,000 guns in the armory for his war to liberate the slaves.  Less than two days later, after a white-flag confab failed, the Marines moved in and ended it.  A few weeks later John Brown’s body lay a-mouldering in the grave.

Ah, the Shenandoah Valley and the Blue Ridge Mountains.  (“I may leave the Shenandoah, but she’ll never leave my heart”)  Thomas Jefferson stood on the hill overlooking the valley and declared it “one of the most stupendous sights in nature.”  Indeed.

Oh, right, this is about war.  Okay.  It’s September 1862.  Lee sends Stonewall Jackson to take Harpers Ferry and its railroad and to capture Federal troops, which he does, in a three-pronged, three-day, three-“Heights” attacks which by the end of the day resulted in a Confederate victory and the capture of 12,000 Federal troops (which would stand as a record till World War II). The North, already at Harpers Ferry, neglected to scoop up the heights, so blam! blam! blam! 50 artillery guns on the hills pointed at the valley won the day. Stonewall was an intense private eccentric, graduate of West Point, VMI instructor, a devout Presbyterian who was ruthless in battle.  He succeeded because of surprise, speed and tenacity.  He was brilliant at maneuvering weaponry but bad at making clear his “commander’s intent,” which meant his subordinates didn’t know how to organize themselves under him.  Lee was fine with that because Jackson could intuit Lee’s wishes. 

While the Confederates won the day, they retreated from the Valley to set up their winter camp after the Battle of Antietam that shortly followed.  Never mind.  Harpers Ferry would change hands eight times during the war.  But that defeat boosted Southern morale and scared the North.

Yawn.  It’s night-night time and I haven’t even begun Antietam.  I’ll catch up tomorrow.  So much to tell.  Bloody Lane.  The people on the bus.  The North’s leadership.  Why the North and the South gave battles different names.  Uh, can y’all stay after class?