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[206] the ferry is a less bold ridge, named Bolivar Heights, which falls off in graceful undulations southward into the Valley of the Shenandoah. The picturesque little village of Harper's Ferry lies nestling in the basin formed by these three heights, which tower into an almost Alpine sublimity. A line drawn from any one mountain-top to either of the others must be two miles in stretch; yet rifle-cannon crowning these heights can easily throw their projectiles from each to other— a sort of Titanic game of bowls which Mars and cloudcom-pelling Jove might carry on in sportive mood. But the Maryland Height is the Saul of the triad of giant mountains, and far o'ertops its fellows. Of course, it completely commands Harper's Ferry, into which a plunging fire even of musketry can be had from it. While therefore Harper's Ferry is itself the merest military trap, lying as it does at the bottom of this rocky funnel, yet the Maryland Height is a strong position, and if its rearward slope were held by a determined even though small force, it would be very hard and hazardous to assail.

Colonel Miles, in the distribution of his command, had posted on Maryland Heights a force under Colonel Ford, retaining the bulk of his troops in Harper's Ferry. This was a faulty disposition. He should have evacuated the latter place, and transferred his whole force to Maryland Heights, which he could readily have held till McClellan came up. Under his instructions from General Halleck, he was bound, however, to hold Harper's Ferry to the last extremity, and, interpreting this order literally as applying to the town itself, he refused to take this step when urged to it by his subordinates. But what was worse, Ford, after opposing a very feeble and unskilful resistance to McLaws' attack on the 13th, retired to Harper's Ferry, spiking his guns and toppling them down the declivity. Thus Maryland Heights was abandoned altogether. McLaws succeeded in dragging some pieces up the rugged steep, and Jackson and Walker being already in position, the investment of Harper's Ferry was by the morning of the 14th complete. The Bolivar and

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