Harpers Ferry Covered Bridge

Harpers Ferry Covered Bridge Photo Gallery

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About 1850	1858	About 1860	1861	1861

1861	06-1861 Article	07-1861 Article	2001 Piers

The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad at Harpers Ferry

In 1835, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was in the process of extending its railway tracks from Point of Rocks to Maryland Heights with plans to cross the Potomac River to Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia).

A turnpike covered bridge, Wager's Bridge, built in 1824, crossed the Potomac at the location the B&O preferred to lay their tracks. The bridge and the shoreline approach on both sides of the river were owned by the Wager family, decendents of Robert Harper. The railroad approached the Wager family about purchasing their bridge with plans to build an addition to it providing for both railroad and road traffic. However, there were some problems with using Wager's bridge. Wager's bridge reached the Maryland shore at a 90 degree angle making it difficult for the B&O to negotiate the turn to proceed across the river. The B&O also considered the bridge to be unsafe. Gerald Wager, spokesman for the Wager family was difficult to deal with, constantly creating problems with the B&O executives, including demanding high compensation for tolls if the B&O used his bridge for their railroad line. After careful consideration and some persuasion from Moncure Robinson, the head engineer of the Winchester and Potomac Railroad, the B&O decided that Wager's bridge would not accommodate a practical turn for the tracks of the railroad and decided to build their own bridge. B&O chief engineer Jonathan Knight gave the job of designing a new bridge to Benjamin Latrobe, Jr., and hired Lewis Wernwag to build it.¹

A New Bridge is Built

Latrobe and Wernwag estimated the new bridge would cost $85,000. The location for the bridge was slightly downstream from Wager's bridge and the alignment at the Maryland shore was more practical for the railways. Construction of the bridge began in 1835. Latrobe's bridge was approximately 900 feet long from abutment to abutment, including the span over the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal on the Maryland side and made of wood with wrought and cast-iron components. It has seven spans of varying lengths, the longest of which was 135 feet. Five of the six piers sat in mid-river and the sixth pier was on land at the canal towpath. Each span consisted of three parallel trusses to provide double lanes. The turnpike portion of the bridge was on the upstream, or north side of the bridge and the railroad was on the downstream, or south side.

Latrobe did not use Lewis Wernwag's truss system. Morever, it resembled a Howe truss with verticals in tension and diagonals in compression. The dominant feature was the Schauffhausen-type truss arch braces which radiated from the abutment out to a progressively thicker top chord. The Schauffhausen bridge was over the Rhine River built by a German carpenter Ulric Grubenmann. Latrobe's truss on the new bridge at Harpers Ferry is referred to as a Latrobian truss. The bridge opened to turnpike traffic in January 1837, although it was not covered when it opened. In October 1837 carpenters weatherboarded and roofed the span over the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. The other trusses would remain uncovered through much of the winter.

Although Latrobe thought the Harpers Ferry Bridge, also known as the B&O Bridge, was a beautiful structure, he soon realized that the lumber was of "rough stuff." No sooner had the bridge opened and he knew it would require repairs. The weight of the superstructure had already cracked the heads of the piers and the cause was poor masonry. Some of the foundations were washing away and most of the piers in the river would have to be completely rebuilt. Repairs were costly. The B&O spent $5,596 on repairs in 1837 and another $7,270 in 1838.

In 1842, the B&O added a "Y" span to the bridge on the Harpers Ferry side of the river. The Winchester and Potomac refused to grant trackage rights to the B&O. The B&O had planned to connect head-on with the Winchester & Potomac, not to lead upriver along the Potomac western shoreline. Latrobe had to rebuild the Harpers Ferry end of the new bridge, placing a junction switch 265 feet out from the shore, with a sharply curved new span to carry the tracks in the direction of the Potomac River shore.² The addition of the "Y" span expanded the Harpers Ferry Bridge to approximately 1,051 feet.

The Civil War took its toll on many bridges across the Potomac River and C&O Canal. At 4am on June 14, 1861, Stonewall Jackson's Confederate Army blew up Harpers Ferry Bridge. The railroad and turnpike bridge was rebuilt nine times during the Civil War, although it was never rebuilt as a covered wooden structure.³ (Harper's Weekly first reported the bridge destroyed on June 14, then showed a photo saying it was destroyed on June 15, and in another report is the same issue said it was destoyed on June 13. Since the new release article on June 14th from Frederick was dated, it is most likely the date it was destroyed. History books also fluctuate on the actual date the bridge was destroyed.) Floods totally or partially destroyed the bridge in April and June of 1862, in April and May of 1864 and again in September of 1864. The Union Army destroyed the bridge in July 1863. Besides the 1861 demolition, the Confederate Army destroyed the bridge in September 1862 and again in July 1864. The piers of the old covered bridge and its subsequent bridges can still be seen in the Potomac River.

Significance of The Harpers Ferry Bridge During the Civil War

Harpers Ferry Bridge played a significant role in the Civil War. The following information was taken from a website, now defunct about John Brown's Raid at Harpers Ferry:

The first shots in John Brown's infamous raid on the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry, in October 1859, were fired at a train from the darkness of a covered bridge. Brown and his 18 anti-slavery revolutionaries hid in the big "S" shaped covered railroad bridge over the Potomac River and apparently planned to also use the bridge as their route of escape. The station's porter, a freed man, went to investigate the shots and in doing so allowed himself to be silhouetted against the opening of the bridge. When he turned to find his way back, he was shot in the back, becoming the raid's first casualty. Another Black man, one of John Brown's own men, was the second to die in a raid intended to free slaves.

In the ensuing battle at Harpers Ferry, John Brown captured the federal armory. From a Washington Post book, Escape Plans:

John Brown's Raid initially meant well, but as the day dawned and the townspeople became aware of the armory's capture, confusion led to chaos and bloodshed. Shots were fired. Local militia began to arrive. Vastly outnumbered, John Brown retreated into the town's fire station with hostages. The mayor, mistaken for a sharpshooter, was killed, as was a local businessman and two raiders sent out to negotiate an escape.

By the time a trainload of U.S. Marines arrived, under command of Robert E. Lee, the crowd was vengeful, and many were drunk. Battering the fire station door with sledge hammers and a large ladder, the Marines brought the invasion to a conclusion in a matter of minutes. John Brown was beaten into unconsciousness and later was hanged at Charles Town for treason, murder and inciting slaves to rebellion.

Chester G. Hearn's book, Six Years of Hell details the events leading up to destruction of the Harpers Ferry Bridge on June 14, 1861:

Harpers Ferry was crucial to both the Union and Confederate Armies. Union Major General Robert Patterson believed that the first great battle of the war would be at Harpers Ferry. Other Union leaders differed with him. General Jackson of the Confederate Army instructed his brigade in the fine art of demolition. At 4am on June 14, 1861, a gigantic explosion shattered the slumber of the town's residents as the high road and Baltimore and Ohio bridges toppled into the river. Within an hour the historic structures lay in charred ruins on the bed of the Potomac. Jackson's men then went to work on the long span that connected the Winchester and Potomac spur to the main line of the B&O. With the railroad disabled and the town virtually destroyed, Jackson posted guards at the town and marched out of town to fight another battle at Bunker Hill.

¹ Michael W. Caplinger,Bridges Over Time: A Technological Context for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Main Stem at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia (West Virginia Institute for the History of Technology and Industrial Archaeology at West Virginia University: 1997), p. 9-11.

² Ibid; p.18-29.

³ Geo. B. Abdill, Civil War Railroads, Pictorial Story of The Iron Horse-1861 thru 1865 (Superior Publishing Company: 1961), p. 24.

Reference Notes

Michael W. Caplinger's book Bridges Over Time is a superb book providing details about the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad at Harpers Ferry. Most of the content in the above review of the Harpers Ferry Covered Bridge was taken from his book. However, there are many excellent books about the Harpers Ferry area, its bridges and the historic Baltimore & Ohio Railroad:

Michael W. Caplinger, Bridges Over Time: A Technological Context for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Main Stem at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia (West Virginia Institute for the History of Technology and Industrial Archaeology at West Virginia University: 1997).

Geo. B. Abdill,Civil War Railroads, Pictorial Story of The Iron Horse-1861 thru 1865 (Superior Publishing Company: 1961).

James V. Murfin, From the Riot & Tumult, Harpers Ferry (Harpers Ferry Historical Association, Inc., Harpers Ferry, West Virginia: 1989).

Chester G. Hearn, Six Years of Hell, Harpers Ferry During The Civil War (Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, LA: 1996).

James D. Dilts, The Great Road, The Building of the Baltimore & Ohio, The Nation's First Railroad, 1828-1853. (Stanford University Press, Stanford, California: 1993).

Daniel Carroll Toomey, The Civil War in Maryland. (Toomey Press, Baltimore, Maryland: 2000).

Festus P. Summers, The Baltimore and Ohio in The Civil War (Stan Clark Military Books, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania: 1993).

John F. Stover, History of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (Purdue University Press, West Lafayette, Indiana: 1987).

Roy Meredith and Arthur Meredith, Mr. Lincoln's Military Railroads, A Pictoriak History of the United States Civil War Railroads, 1861-1865 (W.W.Norton & Company, New York: 1979).

Susan Cooke Soderberg, A Guide to Civil War Sites in Maryland, Blue and Gray In a Border State Beidel Printing House, Shippensburg, PA: 1998).

Dolly Nasby, Harpers Ferry, Then and Now (Arcadia Publishing, Charleston, SC: 2007).

Bruce Roberts, Harper's Ferry in Pictures (Heritage Printers, Inc., Charlotte, NC: 1960).