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  • A nearly full moon illuminates passing clouds over a wintry Highland Scenic Highway in Pocahontas County, West Virginia.
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  • Starry Sky over the Highland Scenic Highway. Monongahela National Forest. West Virginia
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  • Autumn in Shenandoah National Park, as seen from Skyline Drive.
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  • Moonlit night over Skyline Drive. Shenandoah National Park. Virginia
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  • The historic town of Harpers Ferry is illuminated from a full moon above; as seen from the edge of Maryland Heights.<br />
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On the night of October 16th, 1859 a party of 17 armed men led by the militant abolitionist John Brown crossed the Potomac River over the B&O railroad bridge (the piers of which can be seen below at left) to seize the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry and its stockpile of 100,000 rifles and muskets. With these weapons, Brown intended to facilitate an armed slave uprising that would spread throughout the entire South. <br />
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While his raid failed, the news of John Brown's attempt was an earthquake that reverberated throughout the entire Union and split the fault line between North and South. denounced as a psychotic terrorist by Southerners, Brown was embraced by many Northern abolitionists as a martyr. This outpouring of support for Brown exasperated Southern suspicions of a yankee-abolitionist plot to subjugate the South under Northern control through emancipation; by force if necessary. Southern states, long fearful of slave revolts, revived the militia system to combat all future "John Browns" laying the foundation for what would become the Confederate Army. <br />
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On the morning of his execution, John Brown handed a note to one of his guards that would become prophetic: "I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood..." 16 months later, Confederate batteries in Charleston would open fire on Fort Sumter, and the bloody purge would begin.
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  • On the night of October 16th 1859 a party of 17 armed men led by the militant abolitionist John Brown crossed the Potomac River over the B&O railroad bridge to seize the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry and its stockpile of 100,000 rifles and muskets. With these weapons, Brown intended to facilitate an armed slave uprising that would begin in Virginia and move South along the Blue Ridge as word of the revolt spread. The raid was initially successful. Brown's men seized the railroad bridge, rounded up the town's watchmen, cut the telegraph wire and seized the arsenal complex (guarded by a single sentry) without incident. It all went downhill from there. <br />
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Brown's entire plan hinged on the assumption that slaves in the surrounding countryside would flock to him after receiving word of the raid. However, no slaves were made aware of the planned attack, and consequently Brown quickly found himself surrounded in the morning not by eager runaway slaves but by angry townspeople and militia. Volleys were exchanged and hostages taken as Brown and his men retreated into the Arsenal's engine house (known today as John Brown's Fort)  barricading themselves inside. <br />
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Meanwhile, An eastbound B&O train stopped by Brown's men earlier that morning was allowed to continue forward, whose conductor quickly wired a telegram reporting the raid to officials in Baltimore. In a matter of hours, Washington was alerted to the attack. President Buchanan dispatched a detachment of U.S. Marines led by Col. Robert E. Lee; future commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, to end the siege and capture John Brown. The Marines arrived in Harper's Ferry the next day. Brown refused to surrender himself in exchange for the lives of his remaining men, and the marines stormed the engine house to take Brown prisoner.
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  • Fall foliage in West Virginia.
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  • The sun rises over Shenandoah National Park, as seen from the Mt. Marshall Overlook along Skyline Drive.
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  • Sunset over the New River Gorge as seen from the Hawks Nest Overlook. Ansted, West Virginia.
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  • A car drives through Marys Rock Tunnel along Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park in wintertime.
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  • A family takes pictures of themselves with yesterday's sunset from an overlook along skyline drive in Shenandoah national park.
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Craig Hudson Photography

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