Confederates: June 2009 Archives

This old farm at the intersection of Baker Road and East Berlin Road in West Manchester Township was among the hundreds of similar farms visited by patrols from Confederate Major General J. E. B. Stuart's cavalry division during its sojourn through York County, Pennsylvania, on June 30 - July 1, 1863. More than 450 different residents of the county later reported losing horses to Stuart's column.

Among Stuart's diverse regiments was the 2nd North Carolina Cavalry, which had lost its commander as a prisoner or war during the Battle of Hanover. The regiment had been severely depleted in manpower during the earlier battles of Aldie, Middleburg, and Upperville in the Loudoun Valley prior to Stuart's Ride around the Union Army, and the fighting at Hanover had not helped the matter, nor had the grueling retreat northward toward Dover. Horses played out, soldiers rode together on the remaining horses, and patrols scoured the countryside for fresh horses and mules.

Included in the saddle weary ranks was James A. Buxton, an 18-year-old soldier who had only joined Company H of the 2nd North Carolina in February of that year. Already he had seen considerable combat action and was now a seasoned veteran. He had been slightly wounded at the June 9 Battle of Brandy Station and had been reassigned to General Stuart's headquarters as a special courier while he recuperated. He was still serving in that capacity as the division rode through Maryland and southern Pennsylvania during the early stages of the Gettysburg Campaign. He would remain as one of Stuart's couriers throughout the Battle of Gettysburg and the rest of the summer campaign, returning to his regiment in September prior to the Bristoe Campaign.

Years later in the pages of the Confederate Veteran magazine, Jim Buxton, by then a senior citizen living in Newport News, Virginia, recalled his brief visit to York County...

The Stouffer name (in various spellings) is well established and well known within York County, Pennsylvania, particularly with the Stauffer cookie and cracker company, as well as a popular local grocery store. The rosters of Civil War soldiers by that name from Pennsylvania is long and varied, with Stouffers, Stoufers, and Stauffers abounding in various regiments, including York County's very own 87th Pennsylvania.

That regiment was the subject of an excellent book penned by Dennis Brandt, who will join Jim McClure, Terry Latschar, and me in presenting a special FREE symposium on the Civil War in York County at York College this Thursday from 6:30 until 9:00 PM as part of the annual Patriot Days celebration. (The symposium will be held in DeMeester Hall, which is the auditorium inside the MAC building, or Wolf Hall. It is on the left as you enter from Country Club Road. There is a parking lot right next to the building.)

Albert D. Stouffer was born in Carlisle into a farming family originally from York County. His parents eventually moved to the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, where his father died and his mother remarried. According to enlistment records, Stouffer was 5' 9" tall, blue-eyed, light haired and dark complected.

He was seventeen years old when he was pressed into the Confederate military service at the start of the war in April 1861. Stouffer soon made his escape, swam the Potomac River, and was wounded by the Rebels as he fled. He made it back to his native Keystone State, found work as a laborer in York, and celebrated his 18th birthday north of the Mason-Dixon Line. In late September of that same year, he joined the Union Army as a private in Company E of the 87th Pennsylvania. He served throughout the war in the 87th, mustering out with his regiment on June 29, 1865.

He was one of the very few men in York County to be able to claim that he served in both the Confederate Army and the Union Army during the Civil War!

Advertisement from a June 1863 issue of the Gettysburg Compiler showing one of the new pieces of mechanical farm equipments coming into use by the farmers of southern Pennsylvania. In this case, the Wible farm would be used as a field hospital following the Battle of Gettysburg. There is no record if the mower was present at the time, but it is likely.

For much of my 30 years in industry, I have frequently traveled, sometimes as much as 30-35% of the business days, including 42 states and 18 countries. I have been privileged to see most of the United States and Western Europe, as well as Japan and other captivating places. Growing up in a small community in rural southeastern Ohio, I have always maintained a strong interest in the farming techniques and farmsteads of the places I visit.

The same was true in the summer of 1863 as Confederates from North Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, Virginia, South Carolina, and Maryland paid a visit to York County during the midst of the Gettysburg Campaign. A study of the enlistment rolls for the regiments of Jubal Early's division and J.E.B. Stuart's cavalry division reveal that the majority of the Rebel infantrymen and troopers were pre-war farmers.

Naturally, the agriculture of the southern tier of the Keystone State held special interest for these tillers of the soil, who marveled at the rich topsoil in PA, the huge barns, and the new fangled mechanical farm implements they encountered as they passed through the region.

Copyright 2007, Scott Mingus and Tom Poston, all rights reserved. Map of the June 28, 1863 skirmish of Wrightsville, Pennsylvania. No reproduction without written permission.

On the late afternoon of Sunday June 28, 1863, more than 1500 Confederate soldiers under Brig. Gen. John B. Gordon of the Army of Northern Virginia marched from York, Pennsylvania, eastward through Hallam to Wrightsville on the river, a distance of some 10-11 miles. Their goal was to seize the mile-and-a-quarter-long covered bridge over the Susquehanna River, a key military target that would allow passage into Lancaster County where several important railroads could be interrupted. Defending the bridge was a motley collection of hastily trained Pennsylvania volunteer militia, invalided veteran soldiers emptied from the beds of the U.S. Army Hospital in York and their guards, a handful of active duty troops from the 87th Pennsylvania who had been badly embarrassed at the Second Battle of Winchester by these same oncoming Georgians, and three small cavalry units, one of which was a parade show group from Philadelphia.

Looking southwesterly toward the fields through which Gordon's Rebels advanced.

Gordon formed the 31st Georgia into battle line in the fields beyond the white farm and slowly advanced the veteran regiment, while two other regiments skirted to the hills north of Wrightsville in a flanking movement and three regiments performed a similar flanking march near Kreutz Creek to the south.

Fame commentator Paul Harvey used to close his popular radio show with the tag line, "And now you know the rest of the story." Most of us are well aware that York was occupied by Confederate forces during the early summer of 1863, but how many of us know the rest of the story? Come to the York Civil War Round Table's June 17 meeting to find out!

As a prelude to the annual Patriot Days in York and the Battle of Gettysburg, the York Civil War Round Table has scheduled York native, author and historian, Scott D. Butcher to speak at its June 17th meeting. His PowerPoint presentation is called "York: Prize of the Confederacy." He includes in his talk the residents of York in June 1863, specific York landmarks, numerous first-person accounts and quotes from both sides and the newspaper headlines from the days of the Confederate occupation.

He is also going to include information he has collected on the Underground Railroad in York County, a topic that has not often been discussed in any detail.

Civil War artist Bradley Schmehl of York, PA has produced an excellent depiction of Major General Jubal A. Early's entry into Gettysburg's "Diamond" (the town square) on the afternoon of June 26, 1863, following his successful repulse of Pennsylvania militia defenders at Marsh Creek and Witmer Farm. Both firefights, and Early's subsequent occupation of Gettysburg and York, are topics I cover in detail in my recently released book, Flames Beyond Gettysburg: The Gordon Expedition, June 1863. The book is available on amazon.com or directly from me at www.scottmingus.com

Veteran wargamer Larry Reber snapped the above photograph of Brad's art print at a Gettysburg gift shop, and Brad gave me written permission to reproduce Larry's image of his copyrighted artwork.

Brad tells me "The Diamond can be ordered from us. The canvas prints are $200 + s/h ($20). Check or money orders, can be sent to 25 S Yale St, York, PA 17403. In G'burg, the Wax Museum carries them and so does Gburg Frame Shop."

If you collect Gettysburg art prints, this one is of interest as it is one of the few prints that depicts downtown Gettysburg under the Confederate occupation, and is one of only two I am aware of concerning Early's entry (the other one is of Early's cavalrymen under Elijah White entering town shortly before Early's Georgia infantry under John B. Gordon arrived).