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{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2019}}
[[File:HarpersF1862.jpg|thumb|325px|Harpers Ferry Armory in 1862]]
The '''Harpers Ferry Armory''', more formally known as the '''United States Armory and Arsenal at Harpers Ferry''', was the second federal armory created by the United States government
The Armory was a long, narrow complex of buildings, located alongside the [[Baltimore
|title=Cultural Landscape Report for the United States Armory and Potomac Riverfront, Harpers Ferry National Historical Park
|last=Lee
|first=Andrew S.
|first2=Allison A.
|last2=Crosbie
|year=2009
|publisher=[[Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation]], [[National Park Service]]
|location=Boston
|url=https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/hafe/armory_clr.pdf
|url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230630131030/https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/hafe/armory_clr.pdf |archive-date= Jun 30, 2023 }}</ref>{{rp|185}} As of that date, the Armory had manufactured some 600,000 firearms.<ref>{{cite journal
|title=The Men Who Started the War
|first=Drew Gilpin
|author-link=Drew Gilpin Faust
|journal=[[The Atlantic]]
|date=December 2023
|pages=82-89, at p. 84}}</ref>
During the [[American Civil War]], the Armory was destroyed and its equipment removed; it was not rebuilt. The only surviving building is its former fire engine house, known today as [[John Brown's Fort]]. As of 2021, it is not in its original location.
==The national armory==
In 1794, the [[United States Congress|U.S. Congress]] passed a [[Bill (proposed law)|bill]] calling "''for the erecting and repairing of Arsenals and Magazines''". President [[George Washington]], given wide latitude in carrying out this order, selected Harpers Ferry, then a part of [[Virginia]], for the location of the Harpers Ferry National Armory.<ref name="nps1">{{cite web |title=Harpers Ferry Armory and Arsenal |url=
The national armory at Harpers Ferry was actually the second national armory. The first was the [[Springfield Armory]], constructed in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1794 after Congress approved the bill to create the nation's first national armory.
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While Virginia was still in the [[Union (American Civil War)|Union]], the armory regularly shipped manufactured weapons and material throughout the United States. However, once the Civil War began, the national armory became a vital control point for both the [[Confederate States of America|Confederates]] and the [[Union (American Civil War)|Union]].
Close to the beginning of the war on April 18, 1861, just a day after Virginia's conventional ratification of secession, Union soldiers, outnumbered and deprived of reinforcements, set fire to their own armory in an attempt to thwart the usage of it by an advancing Virginian Confederate militia numbering 360 men in all. Harpers Ferry residents (many of whom made their living off the armory) were able to put out the fires swiftly enough to save most of the armory's weapon-making machinery. After rescuing the equipment from the fire, the Confederates stole the equipment and shipped it south by rail to [[Winchester, Virginia]], and from there to Richmond,
|title=James H Burton
|url=https://www.nps.gov/hafe/learn/historyculture/james-h-burton.htm
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|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201031095728/https://www.nps.gov/hafe/learn/historyculture/james-h-burton.htm
|url-status=live
}}</ref> The South had virtually no small-arms production and an inadequate supply of raw materials. The machinery taken from Harpers Ferry became the foundation of the Confederate arms manufacturing.{{cn|date=September 2023}} Two weeks later, the Confederates abandoned Harpers Ferry, while also confiscating what was left in the Armory and burning the rest of the remaining buildings.<ref name="
▲|last=Lee
====The armory's strategic location====
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===Aftermath of the Civil War===
[[File:Overlooking the U.S. Armory (Musket Factory) archeology site, at sunset (22130382701).jpg|thumb|Overlooking the U.S. Armory (Musket Factory) archaeology site (NPS Photo/Hammer)]]
Due to the degree of damage to the armory during the Civil War, the U.S. government decided not to re-establish the armory at Harpers Ferry, instead focusing the quickly developing areas west of the Mississippi River.
Today the site is mostly covered by railroad track embankments.
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===John Brown's Fort===
{{main|John Brown's Fort}}
[[John Brown's Fort]] was the only building to survive the destruction wrought upon it by the Confederates and the Union forces. It was the armory's fire engine and guard house,<ref name="nps1"/> which [[John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry#Monday, October 17|Brown and his raiders barricaded themselves in]]. It was given
This building has been moved four times. The first time, freeing up the site for the railroad to use for an embankment, it was moved to Chicago, where it was displayed at the [[1893 Columbian Exposition]]. Abandoned after that, it was moved back to a farm near Harpers Ferry. From there, it was moved to the place it was the longest, and where it was most honored: [[Storer College]], a school established for freedmen in Harpers Ferry, which also was given by Congress the Arsenal managers' housing, set back on Camp Hill.
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== See also ==
* [[Harpers Ferry Model 1803|Harpers Ferry Model 1803 Rifle]]▼
* [[John Brown's Fort]]
▲* [[Harpers Ferry Model 1803|Harpers Ferry Model 1803 Rifle]]
* [[M1819 Hall rifle]]
* [[M1841 Mississippi rifle]]
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==External links==
{{commons
* {{HABS |survey=WV-162 |id=wv0109 |title=Armory Yard Gateway, Murphy Farm, .5 mile south of Highway 340, Harpers Ferry, Jefferson County, WV}}
* {{HABS |survey=WV-230 |id=wv0207 |title=Armorer's Dwelling House, Northwest side of Shanandoah Street, 400' west of Market Street, Harpers Ferry, Jefferson County, WV |link=no}}
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[[Category:Historic American Engineering Record in West Virginia]]
[[Category:Buildings and structures in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia]]
[[Category:
[[Category:United States Army arsenals]]
[[Category:John Brown sites]]
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