Civilians: November 2009 Archives

The farm of Henry Hoff III during the Civil War; all photos by Scott Mingus taken in November 2009. Taken from Zeigler's Church Road looking west.

This typical Pennsylvania German farm is tucked in a shallow valley paralleling Zeigler's Church Road (foreground) in North Codorus Township in southern York County, Pennsylvania. Many of the old 19th century farms in this region still have the original houses, summer kitchens, and the characteristic huge bank barns which are often painted red. Other than electricity, indoor plumbing, and the cars and trucks parked in the farmyards, not much has changed since Major General J.E.B. Stuart's Confederate cavalrymen rode through this scenic and tranquil rural region on Tuesday, June 30, 1863 during the Gettysburg Campaign.

During the Civil War, the prosperous farm was owned and occupied by Henry and Rosanna Hoff and several of their children. A portion of Stuart's lead brigade, that of Brigadier General Fitzhugh Lee of Virginia, passed by this house in the afternoon. When a squadron peeled off from the dust-clouded column and rode down to the Hoff property, the family knew trouble was approaching.

Here is the story of Rosanna Hoff, excerpted from an article I wrote for The Gettysburg Magazine.

York County photographer Dianne Bowders sent me a photo of one of her ancestors, Ellen Busey Roland of Emigsville. Ironically, just a couple of days before then, I had downloaded the following article from newsinhistory.com.

During the months prior to the Gettysburg Campaign in June-July 1863, south-central Pennsylvania was filled with spies, rumors of spies, secret agents, Southern sympathizers, and con men, who preyed on the fears of the populace to sell the farmers golden tickets and secret signs that allegedly would protect their farms from Confederate raiders in the event of an invasion of the North. These shysters claimed to have been authorized agents of the Knights of the Golden Circle, but it's not likely they had any connection to the real operatives.

Some of the spy stories proved true (a few men were captured and taken to prison at Fort Delaware or in Harrisburg; one was executed after being seized in Gettysburg a week before the battle). Others were dramatized (a one-armed door-to-door Bible salesman, for example, was later reported to have been guiding one of Jubal Early's columns through York County) or exaggerated (a drunken man in a York bar boasted of being a Confederate soldier from Alabama personally sent to Pennsylvania by Bobby Lee; after he sobered up he turned out to be just another local wino looking for attention).

Now, was the Dillsburg man (whose identity I am still chasing) actually the York County agent for the K.G.C., or was he another lonely soul looking for some last minute "five minutes of fame." Or, was he confessing his traitorous activities in a soul cleansing final moment?

Keep in mind that much of the purported activity and membership of the Knights of the Golden Circle is still wrapped in innuendo and myth; a definitive account of their dealings in south-central Pennsylvania is on my agenda of "to do" book ideas.

During the week before the Battle of Gettysburg, the attention of the Union Department of the Susquehanna's commander, Major General Darius N. Couch, was on protecting vital railroad bridges and other transport and communications routes in south-central Pennsylvania between Harrisburg and the Mason-Dixon Line. Among his particular areas of interest were the bridges on the Northern Central Railway in York County.

Couch dispatched the newly raised 20th Pennsylvania Volunteer Militia under Colonel William B. Thomas to protect the NCR. Thomas, one of the earliest backers of the Republican Party in Pennsylvania, was a political ally of President Lincoln and through patronage had received the coveted and influential post or Port Collector of Philadelphia, in charge of the Customs House and the tax revenue collection. He raised a regiment of nearly 1,000 emergency militiamen in mid-June 1863 and obtained arms and uniforms from the state at Camp Curtin in Harrisburg before entraining for York County.

Colonel Thomas made his headquarters in a hotel in downtown York and scattered his men in an 18-mile line on several farms from York Haven in northern York County down past Seitzville well to the south. Their positions can be determined from a study of York County Border Claims in Harrisburg and from the records of known troop movements.

Several companies were assigned to patrol the railroads south of York, including protecting bridges near Reynolds Mill, Hanover Junction, and Glen Rock, as well as the Howard Tunnel. Lt. Colonel William H. Sickles set up a campsite on the sprawling Jacob Bowman farm along today's state route 616 south of Hanover Junction at a place later known as Larue.

Here are some photos of the general area, as well as a description of the damage claim of farmer Bowman...