Horatio Gates Myers lived a relatively quiet life prior to the Civil War. He owned and operated a retail store in downtown Hanover, and was a known area merchant. He was married and had two children, a son Herndon and daughter Elizabeth. Like so many other young men in York County, with the outbreak of the Civil War, the 30-year-old Myers enlisted in the Union Army.
On April 25, 1861, he became the captain of the Marion Rifles (Company F) in the 16th Pennsylvania Infantry, a three-month regiment. He suffered from exposure at the regiment’s campsite at Verdant Meadow near Hagerstown, Maryland, and was left behind when the regiment returned to York in July to be mustered out of the service. Myers eventually died on August 7 from lingering effects of his illness. His widow Mollie eventually married a man named William Russell from Lewistown, Pennsylvania, and moved away from York County.
