Yankees: November 2008 Archives

In some cases during the 1863 Gettysburg Campaign, patrols from the Army of Northern Virginia went around searching for specific individuals who had been targeted for seizure because of their position as employees of the Federal government. Mostly, these unfortunate individuals were postmasters and similar occupations. York's postmaster fled to Lancaster County to avoid capture (as did Gettysburg's David Beuhler) and Dover's postmaster remained hidden for several days. In other towns, the men were indeed rounded up and taken back to Virginia in captivity. Other men were also detained, including a few civilians who became belligerent with the occupation force. In a few cases, the captives were former Union soldiers, such as in the case of one York Countian snatched on July 1 in northwestern York County.

Col. Edward W. Hinks commanded the 19th Massachusetts Infantry, which was among the scores of Union regiments that traveled through York County to Washington, D.C. in the autumn of 1861 as the new Eastern Theater Federal army coalesced. The regiment would stay in service for three years, losing some 300 men.

My friend Tyrone Cornbower from work is a fellow member of the York Civil War Round Table. He is a Civil War reenactor who plays the fife at local events. Ty tipped me off a few weeks ago to an unusual Thanksgiving story that I thought I would share with the Cannonball readership. This event took place in November 1861, the first Thanksgiving away from home for these soldiers, and they tried to make it as pleasant an experience as they possibly could.

This anecdote is taken from regimental history of the 19th Massachusetts Infantry, a regiment that earlier in the year had traveled through York County on the Northern Central Railway to Baltimore (on August 30), before being taken to Washington, D.C. The soldiers had "tasted the elephant" at the disastrous Battle of Ball's Bluff in October, and now, as Thanksgiving approached, they were in the process of constructing Camp Benton near Poolesville, Maryland.

I mentioned in an earlier blog post that a correspondent from the New York Times was attached to the Union army during the Gettysburg Campaign and had access to the high command of the cavalry corps, as well as some of the infantry. E. A. Paul claimed in an article preserved after the war in Frank Moore's Rebellion Record that a pre-teen boy served in the 1st Maine Cavalry (J. Irvin Gregg's brigade) and fought at Gettysburg as a bugler. He also mentions the lad had a horse killed at Hanover. One problem - Gregg's men were not at Hanover. However, the boy may have been a staff member or volunteer to Judson Kilpatrick.

In any event, here is the reporter's published story. If true, then this 12-year-old may have been the youngest trooper in the June 30, 1863, Battle of Hanover.

This anti-Lincoln pamphlet, published in 1864 by J.F. Feeks of New York City, is typical of the strong anti-war, anti-Lincoln rhetoric that pervaded many places in the North, including southern Pennsylvania and my native southern Ohio.

Pennsylvania's southern tier of Franklin, Adams, and York counties was a mixture of personalities, ethnic backgrounds, and political beliefs. Some pockets (including the Hanover, Codorus Township, and North Codorus Township area in southwestern York County) had fairly high concentrations of Southern sympathizers. Other enclaves were strongly Unionist, and another large group of residents were totally ambivalent and just wanted to be left alone.

E. A. Paul was a New York Times correspondent who was "embedded" (to use a modern term) with the Army of the Potomac as it traveled northward. Specifically, he accompanied the V Corps into southwestern York County on July 1 en route to Gettysburg. His comments and opinions regarding York County's Copperheads were recorded after the war in Frank Moore's Rebellion Record, a postbellum anthology of Civil War stories. Keep in mind as you read this account, Paul is biased and bases much of his article on hearsay and second-hand information. Still, there are some sentiments in here that have some authenticity, as York County indeed had a fair amount of Copperheads.

"Dueling Banjos" was a popular instrumental composition from the 1972 movie Deliverance. In the film two musicians play off one another in an impromptu concert. Friendly duels to see who can outdo whom are often competitive, but inspiring. In the Civil War, individual duels were much more deadly.

When one thinks of the Civil War, the first mental image is often of sweeping, Pickettesque charges across open fields while the cannon roar. However, often the encounters between combatats was much smaller and more personal, but no less theatening. Here is an anecdote about one such incident in Warrington Township here in York County, Pennsylvania.

Cavalry statuary on the Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Public Square in downtown Cleveland, Ohio. While no Ohio units fought at Hanover, Brig. Gen. George Armstrong Custer was a native Buckeye, although he commanded the Michigan Brigade.

The Rev. Louis Napoleon Boudrye was the chaplain of the 5th New York Cavalry. He and his comrades participated in the June 30, 1863, Battle of Hanover here in York County, Pennsylvania. Here is his account of the regiment's action at Hanover, taken from his 1865 book, Historic Records of the Fifth New York Cavalry, The Ira Harris Guard.

H. Judson Kilpatrick in September 1863, scarcely two months after his encounter with York industrialist A. B. Farquhar. (Library of Congress)

You could not imagine two more different men. Both were young, self-confidant, well connected, and ambitious. That's where the similarities stopped.

Arthur Briggs Farquhar was the son of a Quaker family from Maryland, Educated at the Hallowell School in Alexandria, Virginia, he counted Confederate general Fitz Lee among his personal friends. He bought a company in York, Pennsylvania, and expanded it into a profitable farm implement manufacturing form that lasted for nearly 100 years. During the Gettysburg Campaign, he openly negotiated with Confederate generals John B. Gordon and Jubal Early, repeating an unauthorized visit to Fitz Lee during the Maryland Campaign. In both cases, he was trying on his own initiative to spare his factory (and the town of York) from potential harm. He went on to meet President Lincoln and later became a powerful voice for labor laws in Washington, D.C., serving as Secretary of Labor.

Hugh Judson Kilpatrick was a New Jersey-born son of an Irish farmer. He graduated from West Point in 1861 and became a lieutenant in the 1st U.S. Artillery. By the time of Gettysburg. he commanded a division of Union cavalry. Fond of mistresses and fine living, he was caught napping with a lady friend in a surprise attack by Rebels at Monroes Crossroads. Later a diplomat to Chile, his descendants include CNN reporter Anderson Cooper and socialite Gloria Vanderbilt.

Here is A. B. Farquhar's account of his visit during the Battle of Gettysburg...

Following the Battle of Gettysburg in early July 1863, perhaps as many as 21,000 wounded soldiers remained in Gettysburg for medical treatment, according to Licensed Battlefield Guide Phil Lechak. As soon as they were stable enough for a train ride, they were transported from the various temporary field hospitals (often in barns, sheds, stables, private houses, churches, and schools) to the Gettysburg train station on Carlisle Street. Trains left regularly for Hanover Junction, and from there the men were taken to New York City, Baltimore, Harrisburg or York.

Here is a record of the initial shipments of Union soldiers to the York U.S. Army Hospital on Penn Commons:

Background post: A Near-Miss at Dillsburg!

Quite some time ago I wrote about a near-miss during the Gettysburg Campaign at Dillsburg, Pa., where the 26th Pennsylvania Volunteer Militia deployed in ranks on a hillside near the village in an effort to resist an anticipated charge by the elements of former U.S. congressman Albert Jenkins' Confederate cavalry. In scanning through some old material today, I found a first hand account of Private Dennis Bashore Shuey, a teenaged student and part-time teacher from Lebanon County. Nearly six decades after his brief visit to Dillsburg, he published his recollections in a family genealogy book. Here is D. B. Shuey's account of the fight at Witmer Farm near Gettysburg, and the subsequent retreat to Dillsburg in northwestern York County.

The fate that so often awaited Civil War soldiers who deserted their units. Illustration rom Frank Leslie's The Soldier in Our Civil War, 1893.

In reading through dozens of old accounts of soldiers visiting York, Pennsylvania, the researcher often will find the town referred to as "Little York." I understand from long-time residents of York County that the diminutive adjective was still heard on occasion in casual conversation when they were young, but it is rarely (if ever) heard today. Little York appears in scores of Civil War accounts - regimental histories, diaries, letters, journals, etc. and was apparently still a popular designation during the period, albeit the term York appears much more frequently..

Interestingly, for some reason, one prominent usage of the term "Little York" in my vast files on the Civil War in York County occurs in accounts of soldiers who decided to quit the army and go AWOL in the town. Here are just a couple of examples:

Hanover Junction in November 1863: this may be the special train carrying Pennsylvania dignitaries to the dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery.

In late June 1863, a few months before the politicians and newsmen posed for the above photo, Confederate Lt. Col. Elijah V. White's six companies of Virginia and Maryland cavalrymen raided Hanover Junction. They burned the turntable, railcars, supplies, and the bridge over the Codorus. They also severed telegraph wires, drank whiskey from the John Scott Hotel, and menaced some local civilians.

However, the Rebels were not the first soldiers to annoy the citizens of Hanover Junction...

I lived for many years in Perry, Ohio, a rural community about an hour east of Cleveland in the heart of Ohio's "snow belt." Perry was notable for several things, including vast acres of prime nurseryland and a towering nuclear plant whose owner enticed the citizens to allow its construction by building one of the finest high school facilities in the Buckeye State. Perry was also the home of Hugh Mosher, who served as the model fifer for Archibald W. Willard's classic painting, the "Spirit of '76."

History of the Western Reserve, Upton.

York has always had strong ties with neighboring Maryland. As I frequently drive down I-83 to the BWI airport, I am reminded of the economic and commercial relationships, and, here in my neightborhood, a number of the homes are owned by transplanted Marylanders.

Those economic and social relationships date to well before the Civil War. During that conflict, for more than a year, the largest military force defending York was a company of infantry from Maryland.