The Last Days Of Harpers Ferry Armory

Presently at the University of Maine, Donald B. Webster's primary interest is United States military ordnance, with emphasis on small arms. He has published a number of articles on this subject and a book on American pocket revolvers of the late nineteenth century. He is now working on a history of Harpers Ferry Armory. The Last Days Of Harpers Ferry Armory DONALD B. WEBSTE R, JR. on the night of April 18, 1861, Virginia militia captured Harpers Ferry Armory, a thing which John Brown had miserably failed to do eighteen months before. Although Brown's raid had clearly shown that Harpers Ferry was a worthy objective for any attack, the government continued to give its defense a minimum of attention. John B. Floyd, President Buchanan's Secretary of War, had had every United States arsenal in the South stacked to die rafters with muskets and rifles, with no more effort than signing his name. The total came to some 115,000, all transferred from the Springfield Armory, and the Watertown and Watervliet arsenals in New York state!1 As the South seceded, state by state, all of these poorly-garrisoned arsenals were ripe plums, easily plucked.2 The new Confederacy did not want war but because of the arms transfers was fairly well prepared for it. Harpers Ferry Armory, the only other government arms factory besides Springfield, was the ripest plum of all. There were usually about 90,000 arms stored in the arsenal there,3 and the Southerners believed this still to be the case. Harpers Ferry, however, was in the state of Virginia, which had not yet seceded. The new Confederate Congress at Montgomery, Alabama, kept the telegraph wires to Richmond hot with pleas to join their convention, while Washington extolled the virtues of 1 Claude E. Fuller and Richard D. Steuart, Firearms of the Confederacy (Huntington , W. Va.: Standard Publications, Inc., 1944), pp. 2, 11, 23. 2 Ibid., pp. 20-27. 3 Robert Tomes and Benjamin G. Smith, The Great Civil War (3 vols.; New York: Virtue and Yorston, 1862), 1:175. 30 the Union. The long fiery notes from Montgomery were having their effect, andpublic opinionin Virginia was beginningto shift. On January 21st the worried superintendent at the Harpers Ferry Armory wrote his chief in Washington: Sir: I have reason to apprehend that some assault will be made upon the U.S. Armory at Harper's Ferry. My reasons I do not feel at liberty to disclose. They may or may not be well founded. I deem it my duty to inform you that there is no regularly organized defense for the post. The armorers have been formed into volunteer companies, and arms and ammunition furnished them. ... Of course they are but little real protection against assault of a numerous force. They might be taken without difficulty, though they are armed. I deem it my duty, therefor, as a public officer and as a citizen of Virginia, that a company or more of regular U.S. soldiers should be placed there very soon. ... I cannot be held responsible for consequences at the present, unless the Government itself sees to the protection of its property by placing reliable, regularly drilled forces to sustain me. ... I have taken every precaution which could be taken with the means at my command. I shall cheerfully abide by any order or decision made by the department. Your obediant lstcl servant, Alfred M. Barbour, Superintendent U.S. Armory, Harper's Ferry, Va.4 Barbour and Logan Osborne were elected on February 4th as Union Conservative candidates to the Virginia Secession Convention. Barbour apparently did not vote for the Ordinance of Secession, but, probably because of political and family pressures, he underwent a change of heart and later signed the document.5 Barbour helped with the removal of machinery after the raid on April 18, and went with the Confederates quite willingly.6 Like many other Virginians, including Lee, Barbour hadoriginally been aunionist, butwhen thesplitcamehe electedto stay with Virginia. On the next day, January 3d, First Lieutenant Roger Jones, Second Dragoons, United States Mounted Rifles, was ordered with a company of men to proceed from Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, to Harpers Ferry, to...