Harper's Ferry, as we have seen, had been occupied by a Confederate force under Stonewall Jackson, who became subordinate to the superior rank of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston when that officer arrived on the scene. On both sides a sentimental importance was given to the occupation of Harper's Ferry, which was not warranted by its significance as a military stronghold. It did, indeed, afford a control of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, so long as the position could be maintained. But it derived its importance in the public mind from the fact that it had been chosen by John Brown as the scene of his projected negro uprising in 1859, and was presumed from that to be a natural fortress, a sort of Gibraltar, which, once gained, could be held forever by a small though determined body of men. The Confederate Government and military staff at Richmond so regarded it, and they warned General Johnston that he must realize, in defending it, that its abandonment would be depressing to the cause of the South. General Patterson, whose army gathered in Pennsylvania was to attack it, impressed on the War Department the paramount importance of a victory, and predicted that the first great battle of the war, the results of which would be decisive in the contest, would be fought at Harper's Ferry. He begged for the means of success, and offered his life as the price of a failure on his part. The Washington authorities, though they did not exact the penalty, took him at his word as to the men and means required, and furnished him with between eighteen and twenty-two thousand men (variously estimated), sending him such commanders as Major-General Sandford, of New York (who generously waived his superior rank, and accepted a subordinate position), Fitz John Porter, George Cadwalader, Charles P. Stone, and others. Both sides, then, prepared for action at Harper's Ferry, as for a mighty struggle over an important strategic position.