THE TOWN ANNIE’S FATHER had attacked in 1859 never fully recovered from the trauma, either. As Brown had discovered, Harpers Ferry was easy to seize and hard to hold. It changed hands a dozen times in the Civil War, with passing armies repeatedly burning the river bridges and bombarding the town from surrounding hills. “The larger portion of the houses all lie in ruins and the entire place is not actually worth $10,” a Massachusetts soldier wrote his mother in 1863.
