Sheridan Dug In

In August 1864, Harpers Ferry was again a Union stronghold. Union General Philip Sheridan and his men built this redoubt as a fortification against the Confederates to stop them from skirting undetected along the Shenandoah River into Harpers Ferry, as they had done during the Maryland, Gettysburg, and Washington campaigns of 1862, 1863, and 1864. A ravine separated the redoubt from the rest of Sheridan's earthworks, which included five other redoubts connected to a two-mile-long trench stretching from the Shenandoah River to the Potomac River north of here. Each redoubt held as many as six cannon, and this fort was never attacked.

West Virginia · United States