Six Years of Hell: Harpers Ferry During the Civil War

Beginning with a vivid account of John Brown's raid in 1859 and continuing through the early days of Reconstruction in 1865, Hearn familiarizes us with the miserable existence endured by the citizens of Harpers Ferry, Va., and its environs. Young Bvt. Col. Robert E. Lee arrived after Brown's raid, leading the list of prominent names (Stonewall Jackson, Joseph E. Johnston, Ambrose Burnside, George B. McClellan, Philip H. Sheridan) who held temporary command as the contending armies traded occupation of the town 14 times before the war's end. Hearns's account of the surrender of the Union Army at the Ferry by Col. Dixon S. Miles in September 1862 is superbly written. Was Miles a traitor, or merely incompetent? The travails of the citizens of Harpers Ferry do pale by comparison with such high drama. Also, however necessary Hearn's account of the strategies of both armies might be, sublimation of military tactics would have made for a more taut narrative line, allowing greater attention to the lives of the desperate inhabitants of a place where war made its home for six long years. By concentrating on the collision of events that took place on that small stage in northwestern Virginia, now West Virginia, Hearn provides a dramatic focus for a richly textured understanding of one part of the larger conflict. (Nov.)