Naval Battery

Positioned 300 feet above the Potomac River, the Naval Battery was the first Union fortification on Maryland Heights. Hastily built in May 1862, its naval guns were rushed from the Washington, D.C., Navy Yard, and with a detachment of 300 sailors and marines it was equipped to protect Harpers Ferry from Confederate attack during Stonewall Jackson's Valley Campaign in the spring of 1862. After being thwarted that spring, Jackson returned to Harpers Ferry in mid-September 1862 during the Confederacy's first invasion of the North. His three-day siege included an infantry battle on the crest of Maryland Heights on September 13, when Confederates advanced south along the ridgetop. The Naval Battery's guns were turned uphill to pound the crest, but orders to retreat forced Federal troops to abandon the mountain and the battery. On September 22, one week after the Union surrender at Harpers Ferry, U.S. forces returned to Maryland Heights to build fortifications at better locations on the crest and slope of the Heights. The Naval Battery then lost its defensive importance and eventually became an ordnance depot.

Maryland · United States