Cincinnati Daily Gazette, August 2, 1877. Courtesy of NewsinHistory.com
Sunday, June 28, 1863, was a bitter day for the residents of York, Pennsylvania. More than 1,000 Confederate soldiers from North Carolina occupied the town, with a couple thousand more in the environs. Virginians encamped along George Street on the Henry King and Thomas Schall farms in what is now North York with some troops stationed farther up the road toward Emigsville. The fabled Louisiana Tigers sat astride the hills and farms along the Codorus Creek near the site of today’s Harley Davidson factory. Artillery crowned the hills north and south of town. And, to make matters worse, division commander Major General Jubal A. Early ransomed York for $100,000. Door-to-door solicitation failed to gather the requested cash, and Early began negotiating how York would pay the rest of its debt. A courier from his superior officer interrupted General Early’s deliberations with the town fathers.
Years later, the former general was still trying to collect the debt, somewhat tongue-in-cheek perhaps, but tinged with the bitterness of losing the war and failing to collect the full amount of a ransom he believed the civic authorities has fully agreed to pay.
Salt Lake City Tribune, April 23, 1881.
Scott L. Mingus, Sr. is a scientist and executive in the paper and printing industry, as well as the author of several books and magazine articles on the Civil War, including some that deal primarily with York County during the Gettysburg Campaign.
This Cannonball blog presents stories and anecdotes from the war years, as well as announcing local Civil War events of the modern day.
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There is a story about an old Confederate veteran who used to attend his brigade’s reunion every year in his old, beat-up uniform. A young man who lived next door offered to buy him a new uniform to wear, but the man answered thusly: “If I die and go to heaven in a new uniform, Robert E. Lee may not know me, and if I die and go to Hell, Jubal Early wouldn’t recognize me either!”