Harper’s Ferry Quotes
Last updated August 8, 2010 alphabetically by the individual making the quote.
“[W]e could hear the enemy in pretty large force, by their talk, as I judged.”
William H. Baird
Sep 12 1862
Baird, regimental major of the 126th NY describes the night on Elk Ridge
“Who Would Not Be A Soldier” by Scott D. Hartwig, The Antietam Campaign. edited by Gary Gallagher Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1999
Pg 150
OR 19 (1)
Pg 567
“heard several remarks mad as to what they were going to do in the morning.”
Samuel A. Barras
Sep 12 1862
Barras, regimental adjutant of the 126th NY describes the night on Elk Ridge.
“Who Would Not Be A Soldier” by Scott D. Hartwig, The Antietam Campaign. edited by Gary Gallagher Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1999
Pg150
OR 19 (1)
Pg 607
“We have just heard of the recapture by the Confederates of Harper’s ferry, with 12000 yankees, and immense quantities of ordnance, ammunition, commissar stores and a large number of Contrabands, which in yankee parlance means negro. [I]f they acknowledge such a great loss what must the reality be.”
Anne S. Frobel
Sep 17 1862
Anne Frobel of Fairfax County discusses the capture of Harper’s Ferry
“The Net Result of the Campaign Was in Our Favor” by Gary W. Gallagher, The Antietam Campaign. edited by Gary Gallagher Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1999
Pg14
Frobel, Anne S., The Civil War Diary of Anne S. Frobel of Winton Hill in Virginia, ed. Mary H. Lancaster and Dallas M. Lancaster (Birmingham, Ala: by the editors, 1986)
Pg 70
“I would rather take the place twenty times than undertake to hold it once”
A.P. Hill
Sep 15 1862
Hill in conversation with Union General White at surrender of Harper’s Ferry
General A. P. Hill by James Robertson, (New York: Random 1987)
Pg138
“complete success tomorrow.”
Thomas J. Jackson
Sep 14 1862
Lee to Jackson in an 8PM message predicting capture of Harpers Ferry the next day
Taken at the Flood Robert E. Lee & Confederate Strategy in the Maryland Campaign of 1862 by Joseph Harsh, (Kent OH: The Kent State University Press, 1999)
Pg 274
Jackson to Chilton, 8:15 PM, Sep 14, OR vol. 19 1
Pg 957
“let the work be done thoroughly…Demolish the place.”
Thomas J. Jackson
Sep 14 1862
Jackson to McLaws in a 7 AM message describing tactics to use to capture Harper’s Ferry
Taken at the Flood Robert E. Lee & Confederate Strategy in the Maryland Campaign of 1862 by Joseph Harsh, (Kent OH: The Kent State University Press, 1999)
Pg 268
OR 19 (2)
Pg 607
“Through God’s blessing, Harper’s Ferry and its garrison are to be surrendered.”
Thomas J. Jackson
Sep 15 1862
Jackson in a dispatch at 8AM on Sep 15. Arrived at Lee’s HQ about noon.
Taken at the Flood Robert E. Lee & Confederate Strategy in the Maryland Campaign of 1862 by Joseph Harsh, (Kent OH: The Kent State University Press, 1999)
Pg 307
OR 19 (1)
Pg 951
“but for the tattered Battle flags [they] might have been taken for a brand new Brigade from Boston”
John Keely
John Keely of 19th Georgia notes that Archers Brigade donned Federal uniforms captured at Harpers Ferry
“Dirty, Ragged, and Ill-Provided For” by Keith S. Bohannon, The Antietam Campaign. edited by Gary Gallagher Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1999
Pg 114
Keely, John, “Narrative of the Campaigns of the 19th Georgia Volunteer Infantry,” Atlanta Constitution Magazine, March 15 1931
“never had a gun in their hands until the boxes were opened and the muskets issued to them yesterday.”
Dixon Miles
Aug 27 1862
Miles at Harpers Ferry reporting on the raw recruits being assigned there.
“Drama between the Rivers Harpers Ferry in the 1862 Maryland Campaign.” by Dennis E. Frye, Antietam – Essays on the 1862 Maryland Campaign. edited by Gary Gallagher Kent OH: Kent State University Press, 1989.
Pg 18
“There were some regiments there that would have stood until they were cut to pieces, but some of the new regiments, not three weeks from home, could not have been expected to stand….Like wild asses or colts, they would have run into danger rather than out of it, there.
William H. Trimble
Trimble, a Union brigade commander at Harper’s Ferry describing the green regiments
“Who Would Not Be A Soldier” by Scott D. Hartwig, The Antietam Campaign. edited by Gary Gallagher Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1999
Pg 154
OR 19 (1)
Pg 744-45,565
“The town is full of soldiers. Most of the paroled officers from Harpers Ferry are here, who are all very indignant at Miles, and say they could have held out as well as not-that they only had some 200 killed and wounded.”
Charles S. Wainright
Sep 17 1862
Wainright reporting on the Harpers Ferry parolees in Frederick
A Diary of Battle The Personal Journals of Colonel Charles S. Wainright 1861-1865 by Charles S. Wainright, edited by Allan Nevins New Foreword by Stephen Sears (New York: De Capo Press 1998)
Pg 100
“the whole ground…was pretty well covered in places with old clothes which our soldiers had thrown off, substituting new ones.”
Andrew B. Wardlaw
Sep 13 1862
Wardlaw to his wife on the capture of Harpers Ferry and taking of Federal uniforms by the Rebels
“Dirty, Ragged, and Ill-Provided For” by Keith S. Bohannon, The Antietam Campaign. edited by Gary Gallagher Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1999
Pg 114
Wardlaw Andrew B., Diary, bound vol. 206, FSNMP
“What the hell are you fellows cheering for?” Because Harpers Ferry is gone up G[od] d[amm] you.” “I thought that was it.”
Sep 15 1862
dialog between a federal and confederate on the line in Pleasant Valley upon hearing the cheering of Confederate troops at the surrender of Harpers Ferry. Blackford, War Years with Jeb Stuart, 145
Sealed With Their Lives The Battle for Crampton’s Gap by Timothy J. Reese, (Baltimore: Butternut and Blue. 1998)
Pg 176
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