Meanwhile, a secondary concentration of force developed itself at
Harper's Ferry, forty-nine miles northwest of Washington. When, on April
20, a Union detachment had burned and abandoned the armory at that
point, it was at once occupied by a handful of rebel militia; and
immediately thereafter Jefferson Davis had hurried his regiments thither
to "sustain" or overawe Baltimore; and when that prospect failed, it
became a rebel camp of instruction. Afterward, as Major-General
Patterson collected his Pennsylvania quota, he turned it toward that
point as a probable field of operations. As a mere town, Harper's Ferry
was unimportant; but, lying on the Potomac, and being at the head of the
great Shenandoah valley, down which not only a good turnpike, but also
an effective railroad ran southeastward to the very heart of the
Confederacy, it was, and remained through the entire war, a strategical
line of the first importance, protected, as the Shenandoah valley was,
by the main chain of the Alleghanies on the west and the Blue Ridge on
the east.
A part of the eastern quotas had also been hurried to Fortress Monroe,
Virginia, lying at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay, which became and
continued an important base for naval as well as military operations. In
the West, even more important than St.
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