Harpers Ferry Main • Tour the Battlefield > Bolivar Heights
The Rats in a Cage wayside marker is on the east side of the loop of the Bolivar Heights walking trail in Harpers Ferry National Historical Park.
The marker faces toward the Confederate artillery positions on the Murphy Farm, in a clearing visible just above the right side of the marker.
From the marker:
Rats in a Cage
We are as helpless as rats in a cage.
Captain Edward Ripley
9th Vermont
The Union army refused to give up. Frustrated by the Federals’ stronghold on Bolivar Heights, “Stonewall” Jackson ordered cannons to the mountain tops and nearby plateaus. Pounded by a day and a morning of Confederate bombardment, Union soldiers felt the strain, “A general feeling of depression observable in all the men…All seem to think that we will have to surrender or be cut to pieces,” wrote Union Private Louis B. Hull.
From the caption to the inset photo:
After counsel with his officers, Union Commander Colonel Dixon Miles ordered white flags displayed, signaling the Union surrender. While riding out to tell his artillery to cease fire, Miles was hit by a Confederate shell fragment and dropped from his horse. Before his death the next day, he exclaimed, “I have done my duty. I am an old soldier and willing to die.”
Location of the Rats in a Cage wayside marker
The marker is about 75 yards south of the trailhead on the east side of the loop of the Bolivar Heights walking trail in Harpers Ferry National Historical Park. The trailhead is west of Harpers Ferry at the intersection of Whitman Avenue and Prospect Avenue. (39°19’22.0″N 77°45’40.8″W)