Harpers Ferry Armory

Harpers Ferry Armory, more formally known as the United States Armory and Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, was the second federal armory commissioned by the United States government.^[1] It was located in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia (then part of Virginia). It was also called the "mother arsenal", a term coined in 1797 by the first Secretary of the Navy Benjamin Stoddert.^[2] The first federal armory was the Springfield Armory located in Springfield, Massachusetts.^[1] In many books the town is called “Harper’s Ferry” with an apostrophe.^[3] The national armory has been associated with many historical events throughout the history of the United States.^[4]

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1} "Harpers Ferry Armory and Arsenal". National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. Retrieved 28 June 2016.
2. ↑ Merritt Roe Smith, 'George Washington and the Establishment of the Harpers Ferry Armory', The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 81, No. 4 (October, 1973), p. 415, n. 2
3. ↑ For example, Horace Greeley, The American Conflict: A History of the Great Rebellion in the United States of America, 1860-64. Volume: 1. (1866), p. 279; French Ensor Chadwick, Causes of the Civil War, 1859-1861 (1906) p. 74; James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (1988), p. 201; Stephen W. Sears, Landscape Turned Red: The Battle of Antietam (2003) p. 116.
4. ↑ "Ten Facts about Harpers Ferry 1859-1865". Civil War Trust. Retrieved 28 June 2016.^{[permanent dead link]}