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The Civil War had a profound and disastrous effect on Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, leaving a path of destruction that destroyed the town's economy and forced many residents to leave forever. Because of the town's strategic location on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad at the northern end of the Shenandoah Valley, Union and Confederate troops moved through Harpers Ferry on a frequent basis. The town actually changed hands eight times between 1861 and 1865. On April 18, 1861, less than 24 hours after Virginia seceded from the Union, Union forces set fire to the Armory and Arsenal to keep them out of Confederate hands. The Arsenal and 15,000 weapons were destroyed, but the Armory flames were extinguished and the weapons-making equipment was shipped south. When the Confederates abandoned the town two months later, they burned most of the factory buildings and blew up the railroad bridge. The Union then re-occupied Harpers Ferry in 1862. During the Confederacy's first invasion of the North, on September 15, 1862, General 'Stonewall' Jackson surrounded and captured the 12,500-man Union garrison stationed here. When the Union returned to Harpers Ferry after the Battle of Antietam, they built fortifications on the surrounding heights to protect both the town and the railroad. In 1864, Union General Philip Sheridan used Harpers Ferry as his base of operations against Confederate troops in the Shenandoah Valley. Harpers Ferry was also a route and haven for runaway slaves from the south, before the war and after the war, depending on who occupied the city at the time.
