The 106th Pennsylvania at Harpers Ferry, 150 years ago: Part 2

This post is the second part of the story of the 106th Pennsylvania at Harpers Ferry in early March of 1862. Part one can be found here.


After arriving at Harpers Ferry and exploring the town, on March 2nd, the 106th Pennsylvania was ordered out of its cozy quarters in town. The men were to relocate to Bolivar Heights, 2 miles west of the town. According to the regimental history, as the men marched to Bolivar Heights, they did so in the midst of a severe snow storm, making it difficult to put up their tents for the evening upon their arrival.

The next day, difficulties continued for the 106th. Five of the regiment’s companies, A, B, C, D, and E, along with two artillery pieces, were ordered to the top of Loudon Heights, south of Harpers Ferry and across the Shenandoah River. The assigned companies made their way back through the town and crossed the river with a flat bottomed ferry boat, taking up most of the day in so doing. That evening, upon reaching the summit of Loudon Heights, the 106th relieved the 28th Pennsylvania, the regiment previously posted there. Having little to no shelter, and with a continuing winter storm, it was a brutal experience for many in the 106th atop Loudon Heights. Some found shelter in tents and log huts left behind by the members of the 28th Pennsylvania, yet, after a few days, it was discovered that the shelters were occupied by “graybacks” left behind by the former inhabitants (“graybacks” was a common term used by soldiers for lice).

View of Loudon Heights from the foot of Maryland Heights, along the banks of the Potomac River

All things considered, the situation was quite difficult for the men of the 106th on Loudon Heights. As Josiah R.C. Ward recalled, despite the deprivations, the men managed to persevere:

There we stayed, exposed to that very inclement weather—snow, rain, and cold; the very clouds descending and enveloping us—with such limited accommodations, and a scarcity of provisions, and tried to realize that our patriotism required us to faithfully serve our country under such distressing circumstances, and be content.

 View of Camp Hill, Bolivar Heights, and portion of Loudon Heights from Naval Battery overlook on Maryland Heights

When the winter storm finally broke, the men of the 106th had a beautiful view of Harpers Ferry and its surroundings. As Ward later wrote,

When the weather cleared, we were afforded one of the finest views of the country, and those of us who saw it will never forget it. Standing on that high mountain, we saw the beautiful Potomac coming down from the north, and the Shenandoah from the south, as though cutting their way through the steep mountain; here uniting together and running off to the east and south.

View of Loudon Heights from overlook on Maryland Heights

Describing the town below, Ward described the site of the Union forces,  

Artillery, cavalry, and infantry, with their rows upon rows of white tents, and large numbers of horses picketed in rows, companies and regiments, could be seen moving about in all directions, and the music of the different bands was gently wafted towards us, all denoting the presence of war; the beautiful Shenandoah Valley now turned into a vast camping ground for a large army.

Of Maryland Heights, east and across the Potomac from the town, Ward wrote,  

Looking to the north, across the Potomac, Maryland Heights in all their grandeur loomed up before us, from whose top our flag floated in warning and defiance, and our guns sent their messengers of war over into the land now recovered and occupied by our troops. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, with its branches, could be seen winding their way like large snakes around the base of the mountain, and like tender threads, the long pontoon bridges stretched across the Potomac. And so the eye could wander from one beauty to another, distance lending enchantment. [Maryland Heights loomed over 1,400 feet, the highest of the three heights overlooking Harpers Ferry. Loudon Heights rose to over 900 feet, and Bolivar Heights was over 300 feet.]

View of Harpers Ferry from Maryland Heights

These select portions of the 106th Pennsylvania, including Company D and Private Elwood Rodebaugh (my great-great-great grandfather), remained on Loudon Heights until March 10, when they were ordered forward in support of General Nathaniel Banks’s advance into the Shenandoah Valley, along with the rest of their division, then commanded by Brigadier General John Sedgwick. Two companies were ordered to remain in the town as a guard, along with the colonel of the 106th, Turner G. Morehead. The rest of the regiment proceeded to Charleston, Virginia, with Sedgwick’s division.

Josiah R.C. Ward, The History of the 106th Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers (Philadelphia: Grant, Faires, & Rodgers, 1883), 23-25.

The 106th Pennsylvania at Harpers Ferry, 150 years ago

The winter of 1861 and 1862 was very quiet for the new soldiers of the 106th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. Having joined the army in August of 1861, the first several months of the regiment’s service were spent in camp, training and waiting for action. In late February of 1862, for the first time, the regiment began to move out for active campaigning. Starting on February 25, the regiment began moving west into Maryland, heading toward Harpers Ferry, where their division had been temporarily assigned to the command of Major General Nathaniel Banks’s command. Banks was about to stage a campaign into the Shenandoah Valley, and the 106th was but one of the regiments sent as reinforcements for the movement.


On February 27, after arriving at Sandy Hook, Maryland, the 106th Pennsylvania led a column of Union soldiers across the Potomac and into Harpers Ferry, Virginia. After arriving in the town, the men were put up in homes and buildings abandoned by their previous tenants on account of the war. On their way across the bridge, the men of the 106th saw a most peculiar incident take place, peculiar enough in fact for the Josiah R.C. Ward to include it in his regimental history:

Part of the uniform of the Regiment consisted of high black felt hats with black feather plumes, and were worn with one side of the rim fastened up by a gilt eagle; a gilt bugle ornamented the front; these hats had never been much liked by the men and many were the attempts to get rid of them only to have a new one issued and the cost charged against the delinquent; but when about the head of the column was on the bridge a hat was mysteriously seen to drop overboard; soon another followed; that was sufficient; the signal had been given, the opportunity was just what the men wanted, and it was astonishing to see how easily the light breeze that hardly affected the surface of the water carried those hats overboard; their number increased as each succeeding company stepped on the bridge, until they presented the appearance of a large flock of ducks or other water fowls quietly floating down stream, or as if any army had been swept overboard and lost, with nothing left to tell the tale but their hats. Notwithstanding the positive orders of the officers and their strenuous efforts to prevent it, the number of hats increased until the last company had landed. The two day’s march and the night spent in the [railroad] cars but increased the men’s dislike to them, and some of those who had not taken advantage of the kindness of the breeze, disposed of their in other ways until upon coming on the first dress parade thereafter, so many were found missing that they were ordered to be abandoned.

Following the peculiar, if not comical, incident regarding the soldiers’ hats, some of the men of the 106th began to explore the town of Harpers Ferry. After all, this was the fabled place where, two and a half years earlier, the infamous John Brown had led a group of raiders in an attempt to launch a slave insurrection in Virginia. As the 106th Pennsylvania never saw action during Banks’s Shenandoah Valley campaign, there was ample time for exploring Harpers Ferry. As Ward recalls,

During that time we remained quiet, and the writer availed himself of the opportunity to take a run of the town, now deserted, many houses still containing the furniture, but the owners gone. A visit to what was the government buildings presented a deplorable sight; the buildings all burnt to the ground; nothing but the blackened wall standing [this is a reference to the Federal Armory at Harpers Ferry, which had been burned in early 1861]. These buildings, together with a large quantity of stores, had been destroyed. We also visited the old Engine House made famous by John Brown, and occupied by him during his invasion of Virginia in 1859 for the purpose of liberating the slaves, and in which he so long defended his life. We looked through the same hole that he fired through, sang “John Brown’s body lies mouldering in the ground, but his soul goes marching on;” and finally chipped from the window-sash pieces of wood to be sent home as relics.

By March 2, the men of the 106th were ordered out of the town and sent to Bolivar Heights, west of Harpers Ferry. After marching through a fierce snow storm, the men bivouacked in their tents, quarters which were much less hospitable than those which they had enjoyed while in the town of Harpers Ferry. Thus, with this inauspicious start, the men of the 106th Pennsylvania had begun their first active campaign of the war.




Josiah R.C. Ward, The History of the 106th Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers (Philadelphia: Grant, Faires, & Rodgers, 1883), 21-22. 

Book Review: Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid that Sparked the Civil War, by Tony Horwitz

A View of Harpers Ferry from Maryland Heights.

On December 2, 1859, John Brown, a 59 year old abolitionist, was hung at the gallows in Charlestown, Virginia. Just a few weeks prior, Brown and a band of abolitionists had led a daring and ill fated raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia, attempting to seize the Federal arsenal there and secure weapons to arms slaves in a massive insurrection which would spread throughout the South. Such a daring plan, infused with Christian theology and a radical hatred of slavery, has made John Brown one of the most famous crusaders in American history. Brown lives on in American memory through songs, poems, portraits, sculptures, memorials, and books.

The engine house which became John Brown's fort during his Harpers Ferry Raid

The latest of these books is Pulitzer Prize winner Tony Horwitz’s Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid that Sparked the Civil War. Most will be familiar with Horwitz from his outstanding work on the presence of the Civil War in the modern South, Confederates in the Attack. In Midnight Rising, Horwitz has seemingly taken a new direction, moving from a journalistic view of the past to more traditional historical writing. While the focus of Horwitz’s book is different from his previous works, his writing remains quite similar. Just as Confederates in the Attack was a fascinating read, Midnight Rising keeps the reader consistently engaged from the first page to the last. While some historians view journalists writing history with skepticism, often times it takes one with the writing ability of a non-academic historian to write history in an interesting and deliverable format. Horwitz’s narration of Brown’s dramatic raid at Harpers Ferry places one in the midst of the action at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers in October 1859.

An obelisk marking the original site of John Brown's fort, looking toward its current location, less than 100 yards away.

While I thoroughly enjoyed Midnight Rising, I found Horwitz’s discussion of the differences between John Brown and Abraham Lincoln to be an unfortunate flaw to his otherwise fine work. In 1859, like many Republicans, Lincoln distanced himself from Brown, denouncing the Harpers Ferry Raid as poorly guided violence that did little to help the political, moral, and social problems facing the country. When discussing the two, Horwitz notes that Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry and Lincoln’s assassination served as “bookends to the great national bloodletting over slavery” (280). Horwitz’s characterization of the two men draws a stark contrast between their views: “in death, the reluctant emancipator was joined to the abolitionist he had distanced himself from six years before” (280).

This comparison is a small part of the book’s conclusion, yet it speaks to much larger questions about the two men and their achievements. While John Brown’s cause was no doubt admirable, his story serves as a lesson on how to affect political change. Taking up arms and starting an insurrection to achieve a political goal leads to bloodshed in the streets and further entrenching one’s opposition. Horwitz and many others are right; Brown’s actions sparked outrage in the South, contributing to the already smoldering fire that would soon erupt into Civil War. However, once that war began, the question of slavery was far from being answered. The many twists and turns along the way made abolition anything but a guaranteed result of the conflict. It took the statesmanship of Lincoln to turn emancipation from a possibility to a reality. Lincoln tried combating slavery through rhetoric, politics, and the law. He did not choose the path of violence and war. However, once the war had begun, Lincoln's statesmanship accomplished what the sword of John Brown could not. While Horwitz and many others may paint Lincoln as the “reluctant emancipator,” it was the prairie lawyer from Illinois, not the militant crusader of Kansas, who effectively brought about the end of slavery in America. Chipping away at Lincoln’s achievements to praise John Brown does little to help the reputation of either. Rather, it is best for us to let each stand on his own, understanding each man for what he accomplished. While Brown was an admirable crusader who failed to properly and prudently pursue his goals, Lincoln was a true statesman, using politics and rhetoric to deftly navigate the treacherous slavery issue during the nation’s “fiery trial.”


One aspect of Midnight Rising that I did like was Horwitz’s emphasis on Brown’s Christian beliefs. While the laws of the nation permitted slavery, John Brown firmly believed that such an egregious moral sin could not be tolerated under God’s law, and he was thus required to fight against it. Thus, Brown killed slave owners out of a sense of Divine retribution. Christianity’s crucial place in John Brown’s fight against slavery is representative of most 19th century social reformers. From abolitionists to the temperance movement, the 19th century was filled with individuals seeking to remake American society in God’s image, curing it of all its evils. Certainly, not all went to the lengths of John Brown to accomplish their goals. One should also note that while many Northern abolitionists used the Bible in their fight against slavery, just as many Southern slave owners claimed that God was on their side of the matter. These differing views regarding God’s judgment on slavery lay at the heart of the burgeoning conflict between the North and the South.


Overall, Midnight Rising is quite good, and certainly worth reading. It is a well written narrative of a thrilling event in our nation’s history. Horwitz brings John Brown to life, taking the reader on a journey through Brown’s long crusade against slavery, finally and firmly placing him in the middle of Harpers Ferry during the raid of October 16, 1859. What occurred on that fateful October night was far more than a band of crusaders trying to capture weapons; it represented the nation beginning to tear itself apart. The violence that occurred in the streets of Harpers Ferry soon spilled out across the nation. Without understanding John Brown’s story in all of its tragedy, meaning, and detail, it is difficult to truly understand the road to Civil War.