Harpers Ferry and the 1859 raidOn this date, October 16th, 1859, the city and river crossing feature

Harpers Ferry and the 1859 raidOn this date, October 16th, 1859, the city and river crossing featured in this photo was the scene of a raid against a U.S. military target driven by the issue of slavery.This scene shows Harpers Ferry in West Virginia (the apostrophe has been dropped today). The small community sits at the meeting point between Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia, and at the point where the Shenandoah River meets the Potomac River. Much of the area you see is included within Harpers Ferry National Historic Park, and the Appalachian Trail passes directly through this territory.Harpers Ferry sits within the Blue Ridge province composed of metamorphic rocks formed in the latter part of the Precambrian and early part of the Cambrian. The river here crosses through rocks of the Chilhowee group, made up mostly of Cambrian-aged metamorphosed siltstones, sandstones, and conglomerates formed during time prior to the start of subduction, when oceanic sediments accumulated along the North American coastline in a passive margin sequence. The rocks at this site are less strongly metamorphosed than those in the surrounding territory so the rivers have incised more steeply into the terrain, leading to higher stream gradients and more rapid water flows in the area.The surrounding stronger rocks are remnants of a series of collisions which took place on the North American coastline. Oceanic rocks were subducting beneath North America, bringing island arcs and eventually Africa in to collide with North America. Those collisions buried previous sedimentary rocks to depths where they were metamorphosed, built mountain ranges, and eventually caused the buried rocks at depth to be broken, faulted, and uplifted to the surface.As a consequence of the confluence of the rivers, in the late 18th century President George Washington designated Harpers Ferry as a location where the U.S. military would establish a permanent armory.On October 16th, 1859, an abolitionist named John Brown led a band of over 20 armed men in a raid on the site. They were able to actually capture the armory for a short time before they were surrounded by local militia and federal troops. All of the men were either captured or killed, and Brown himself was executed a few days later. This raid became an additional rallying cry in the efforts to end slavery in America, which culminated a few years later in the U.S. Civil War.-JBBImage credit: Steve S. (Creative commons license share)http://www.flickr.com/photos/12332470@N00/108926827/References http://www.wvculture.org/history/jnobrown.htmlhttp://web.wm.edu/geology/virginia/rivers/potomac-shenandoah.html -- source link

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