Stacking Arms: The Surrender of Harpers Ferry
Colonel Dixon Miles’ attention was called to observe Maryland Heights from his command post on Bolivar Heights west of Harpers Ferry. What he saw stunned him–a column of blue soldiers marching off the mountain and giving it to the Confederates. Miles knew what this meant, but he was utterly shocked that the men of his garrison were abandoning the highest mountain overlooking Harpers Ferry. He exclaimed aloud, “God Almighty! What does that mean? They are coming down! Hell and damnation!”
Two days later, on September 15, 1862, with Confederates hemming in Miles’ men on all sides, the colonel discussed the garrison’s grim situation with two of his brigade commanders and Brig. Gen. Julius White, a man who ceded command to Miles because of the latter’s familiarity with the terrain around Harpers Ferry. The group unanimously agreed to end the matter and surrender the Federal forces at Harpers Ferry to “Stonewall” Jackson and his Confederates. Before Miles’ council of war broke up, the assembled officers agreed that Gen. White should be appointed commissioner to arrange the terms of surrender.
Word spread from the gaggle of officers. Soldiers learned they were to surrender. “Boys, we’ve got no country now,” moaned one Union soldier after receiving the news. Slowly, the opposing guns fell silent, though occasional Confederate artillery shots rained down into the Union position from artillerymen unable to see small white flags of surrender amid the battle smoke and morning fog. “What do they mean?” Miles again inquired. He had little time to contemplate an answer. One of the errant artillery shells exploded behind him. A piece of shrapnel skinned his left calf completely. Miles died the next day.
While Miles fell wounded and was being carried to his headquarters in downtown Harpers Ferry, more Union soldiers showed signs of surrender. Eventually, word echoed along the Confederate line, and the firing stopped.
The spearhead of Jackson’s pending infantry assault, A. P. Hill’s division, was ready to pounce when the guns fell silent and a Union horseman bearing a white flag rode out to their lines. Hill responded by sending one of his staff officers, Lieutenant “Ham” Chamberlayne, into the fortified Federal lines. Hill’s staffer learned that White was the Union representative for surrender negotiations and located him. The two men rode back toward Confederate lines to negotiate with General Hill. White was dressed in his full uniform. In contrast, Hill did not even wear a coat.
Once joined, the two generals rode further into the rear of Confederate lines to Jackson’s headquarters in a schoolhouse. According to custom, White asked Jackson what terms he offered. “The surrender must be unconditional, General. Every indulgence can be granted afterward,” Jackson replied. White assented. Then, Jackson left the two generals to work out the details.
White and Hill came to an agreement on lenient terms for the captured Federals. All 12,719 of them were to be paroled–to agree not to take up arms against the Confederacy until properly exchanged. Hill allowed the captured officers to keep their sidearms and personal baggage. The Federals in the ranks could retain their overcoats and blankets. Hill even granted each man two days’ worth of rations and the captured garrison borrowed 27 wagons from the Confederate army to carry surplus baggage.
Once the terms were agreed upon, the Yankees stacked their arms and handed over their flags, though some units managed to tear theirs into shreds and stuff them into their coats or hide them among the officers’ personal baggage to avoid the humiliation of surrendering their colors.
Aside from the large number of prisoners, Jackson’s victorious Confederates captured an immense supply of material from Harpers Ferry: 73 cannon, 13,000 small arms, 200 wagons, 1,200 mules, and countless foodstuffs and uniform items.
Jackson’s victory at Harpers Ferry on September 15, 1862, created the largest surrender of United States soldiers in the Civil War. The surrender was also the largest in United States history until World War II. It came at an incredibly light loss for the men under Jackson’s command: 39 killed and 247 wounded.
One of the first tasks Confederate soldiers completed upon the Harpers Ferry garrison’s surrender was to take down the garrison’s American flag and replace it with the Confederate national flag. Not one single Union soldier had to ask aloud what that meant. They all knew that they were prisoners of the Confederate States of America and Harpers Ferry was no longer under Union control.
Hope the next writing in the series covers the 1000 to 4000 “contraband” African Americans seized by the CSA in Harpers Ferry and marched off to Richmond to be returned to their owners or sold in slave auctions.
The Confederate practice of mass paroling U.S. troops angered Union General-in-Chief Henry Halleck, for it relieved the Confederates of having to escort and guard POWs. Halleck considered the practice a violation of the controlling Dix-Hill (D.H., not A.P., Hill) Cartel, which required the capturing party to take physical possession of POWs and later exchange them at one of two designated sites.
Indeed, had this large number (12,719) of U.S. surrendered men refused to march away by themselves under parole, A.P. Hill would have been forced to detach a significant number of his own men to escort them all south. Hill thus would have arrived at Sharpsburg with fewer soldiers. Hill’s attack on Burnside’s advancing troops, and the Battle of Antietam itself, might have ended differently.
Placed in an indefensible position. The swift Confederate operation insured that Lee’s grossly divided and imperilled Army would receive reinforcements in the proverbial “nick of time”. And given the presence of the iron spined Stonewall on the scene, any putative and chimerical Union “sit down strike” would probably have ended both quickly and bloodily.