Near Harpers Ferry, what had once been an international border became a Civil War dividing line, with the peak on one side in the Union state of Maryland and Loudoun Heights on the other claimed by the Confederate state of Virginia. Slavery divided the nation, and at Harpers Ferry the two sides clashed over the meaning of freedom. Both Union and Confederate armies used the nearby field as a campground and training field at different times during the war. Thousands of formerly enslaved African Americans flocked to Union camps at Harpers Ferry seeking the protection of the Union army, but as contraband they faced an uncertain future. Virginia’s secession from the Union divided North from South along the Potomac River, and because Harpers Ferry was home to the national armory and a passageway for major railroad lines at the outbreak of the Civil War, it became an important prize of war to both sides.
