The Bolivar Heights Battlefield in Jefferson County, West Virginia, partly in the town of Bolivar, is an American Civil War battlefield which, – because of its strategic position overlooking Harpers Ferry, where the U.S. had an armory, and its placement at the head of the Shenandoah Valley – was the site of five separate engagements between Union and Confederate forces: in October 1861, May and September 1862, June 1863, and July 1864. The battlefield lies partly on the 669-foot (204 m) Bolivar Heights plateau, but also includes School House Ridge to the west, and the slopes of both, which meet at Bakerton Road. The site was also used by the armies as a campground, and, in 1864, as a Union corral and wagon yard.
The battlefield is now part of the Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, and features informational signs, cannons and a preserved defensive trench.
The largest part of the preserved battlefield, which includes the Union skirmish line during the Battle of Harpers Ferry, lies to the east of the town of Bolivar, to the west (School House Ridge) and east (Lower Bolivar Heights) of Bakerton Road in Jefferson County. The part of the battlefield on the plateau lies within Bolivar, to the west of the intersection of West Washington Street and Whitman Avenue.
Bolivar Heights is a plateau that is 669 feet (204 meters) high, located near the town of Bolivar, West Virginia and overlooking the town of Harpers Ferry. It is one of three strategically important heights which overlook the bowl in which Harpers Ferry sits, the others being Maryland Heights in Washington County, Maryland and Loudoun Heights in Loudoun County, Virginia. During the American Civil War, control of these three heights brought control of the town and its location at the head of the Shenandoah Valley, a major strategic area during that conflict and a significant route for the movement of military forces. Bolivar Heights, being the lowest of the three, is often the preferred route.
The first engagement on Bolivar Heights was the Battle of Bolivar Heights, which took place exactly two years after the John Brown raid, on October 16, 1861. The day before, Union Colonel John White Geary crossed the Potomac River from Maryland Heights and captured wheat stored by the Confederates near Bolivar Heights. Geary crossed the river with 600 men but sent 500 of them back that night. The next day, a Confederate force of 300 militia men armed with obsolete flintlock muskets, two companies of regular Confederate infantrymen and 230 cavalrymen under Colonel Turner Ashby attacked Geary's force, drove them back to Bolivar and nearly surrounded them. The Union force then flanked the inexperienced Confederates and in turn forced them to withdraw. The Union troops captured a Confederate 24-pound cannon that had broken down during the fight. Ashby claimed that he had withdrawn in the face of heavy Union reinforcements after holding his position for four hours. Geary greatly exaggerated the size of the Confederate force (3,000) and the number of casualties his men inflicted on them (about 150). In turn, Ashby exaggerated the Union dead, stating that his men had killed 25 Union soldiers.
The American Civil War (1861–1865) was the deadliest conflict in American history, killing an estimated 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers and an unknown number of civilians. The Confederate States of America, formed by eleven seceding Southern states, faced the Union in four years of warfare across 23 states and territories. Major engagements included First and Second Bull Run, Antietam (the bloodiest single day in American history, September 17, 1862), Chancellorsville, Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), Vicksburg (surrendered July 4, 1863), and Sherman's March through Georgia and the Carolinas (1864–1865). President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, transforming the war's stated purpose to include the abolition of slavery and enabling the enlistment of approximately 180,000 Black men in the United States Colored Troops. Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. The war resolved the question of secession and ended American slavery, though Reconstruction would face sustained resistance in its attempt to secure civil rights for formerly enslaved people.
This page covers Bolivar Skirmish (Polk County). A full Aubrey report for the area pulls together this battle alongside historic sites, land records, and everything else the record holds within a few miles:
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