the education of henry

Day 18: Harper's Ferry and Manassas

2023-10-01

We all slept fairly well and the breakfast was decent at the hotel, so it wasn't all bad.

They had three kinds of waffles - I picked blueberry!

We drove through some fog on our way to Harper's Ferry, but it was beautiful to see the sun poking through the mist and the Blue Ridge Mountains above. We made a circuit through Bolivar and Harper's Ferry to see what we could before the buildings opened.

Mom and Dad were laughing about seeing a deer on a hillside in West Virginia - they saw one like this early in the morning on their honeymoon.

Harper's Ferry viewed from the train station. The little yellowish building with the white deck is an ice cream shop called "Almost Heaven." In West Virginia. In the Blue Ridge Mountains. By the Shenandoah River.

Another shot of the town in the fog with the mountains.

This is the confluence of the Potomac and the Shenandoah, which is one reason why Harper's Ferry was a strategic spot in the Civil War.

The "islands" are actually the remains of former bridges.

Another angle as we walked across the bridge.

Me and Dad on the bridge...and on the Appalachian Trail. We probably walked a whole quarter mile of it!

People hang locks on this bridge, which Mom and Dad explained is a thing people do.

We were also on the C&O Canal Towpath, near Lock 33.

This is a picture of a picture of what Lock 33 used to look like when it was in operation. A lot smaller than the locks on the Mississippi back home.

Here's the lock today.

Dad really wanted to keep walking on the AT - it was such a beautiful morning.

Other than being beautiful, Harper's Ferry is very significant to history. One of the US Armory facilities was in Harper's Ferry - this is where they made rifles for the Army. There were huge factories down by the river, and by the 1840s, those factories were turning out thousands of rifles a year.

Tying back in to our tour of Beacon Hill in Boston, Harper's Ferry is also known for John Brown's attempted raid on the Armory here. If you recall, John Brown met with Charles Sumner in Beacon Hill as Sumner was recovering from being nearly beaten to death on the floor of the Senate. Brown's meeting with Sumner steeled his resolve to bring about the end of slavery...and in 1859 he led a raid on the Armory. Brown wanted to use the weapons to start a slave revolt that would eliminate southern slave owners. He was unsuccessful. Brown and his followers were surrounded in the fire house near the armory for 36 hours before they were captured...by US Marines led by Robert E. Lee (yes, that one). And while Brown was in prison, he was guarded by Stonewall Jackson (who didn't have the nickname yet), and Jeb Stuart. Oh, and when he was executed a year later, John Wilkes Booth was in attendance.

Also of historical note, Harper's Ferry was part of Virginia when this happened. After Virginia succeeded from the Union, the counties that now make up West Virginia elected to succeed from Virginia in 1863 and return to the Union.

Here is the fire house where Brown and his follwers were trapped by the marines. This isn't the actual location - the building was moved four times: to Chicago for an exposition, back to a farm outside Harper's Ferry, to the campus of the now defunct Storer College in Harper's Ferry, and finally where I saw it today.

This memorial marks the original spot of the building, which has come to be known as John Brown's Fort.

A whole street downtown is preserved as it was in the 1800s, and the Park Service has displays and historical artifacts in many of the buildings.

This was a fun street to explore.

A view up the hill from Lower Town.

Rifles made in the armory over it's history - which began when the site was designated by Washington in 1794, constructed from 1799-1801, and production started in 1802, and ended in 1861, when it was burned down by the Union troops who fled the town after a Confederate attack.

Getting some good information from a very friendly volunteer at the visitor center.

Over the course of the Civil War, Harper's Ferry changed hands eight times. The Confederates moved to take it as soon as the war started, and it passed back and forth until the the end of the war.

From Harper's Ferry we took the back roads to Manassas. We crossed the Shenandoah River three or four times, went up and down so many hills and around so many curves it was like being on a roller coaster. And it was beautiful every bit of the way. And the houses...so many enormous houses with views of the mountains or the rivers or both. Then we went over the mountain and drove on another curvy, hilly road through forests and horse pastures and more insanely big houses. There wasn't much opportunity to take pictures, so we just have a couple from the car.

From the first part of the drive. Miles and miles of this.

From the second part of the drive. Miles and miles of this.

We made it to Manassas National Battlefield and went right in to watch their movie about the two battles fought here. The Union refers to them as Bull Run and Second Bull Run, the Confederates call the Battles First and Second Manassas. The video was good - definitely the best looking video, but it was long and still not as interesting as the Minuteman presentation. The museum was fairly small, with the usual assortment of uniforms, weaponry, and other artifacts.

This was the most interesting part of the museum - I really like these displays that show how the battle moved across the fields.

Of course we had to take pictures of cannons.

Another beautiful tree that has survived from before the battles.

Part of the battle was fought on Henry Hill.

The Bull Run Monument, one of the first Civil War monuments, erected in 1865.

The big gravestone is for Judith Henry, who lived on Henry Hill and was killed in the battle because she refused to leave her house before the cannon and rifle fire started.

The battlefield - covered in native prairie grass, much like it was when the fighting took place.

A statue of Stonewall Jackson, who got this nickname at Manassas.

We all had a little Civil War battlefield fatigue, so we didn't spend a lot of time at Manassas. It was also very busy, it being such a beautiful day.

From the battlefield we headed to our hotel in Alexandria, stopping at a Target along the way. This hotel is nice. It's clean, it has two rooms and two bathrooms, and there is a lot of space. We won't be tripping over each other and our stuff like we have been. Plus, we checked in by 3:00, so we had plenty of time to relax. It was good to have an easy day with plenty of sunshine.

And that was today. Thanks for reading!