Yankees: January 2009 Archives

Henry Free was a native York Countian who served his country in the American Civil War. He enlisted in Company C of the 166th Pennsylvania, a nine-months' regiment raised in York. Free mustered into the army on November 10, 1862, and was named as a corporal in Company C. The 27-year-old served until mustering out with his regiment on July 28, 1863. He returned to his York residence, married Matilda Hamme and raised a family, with daughter Nettie M. Free and son Henry Jr. They lived in downtown York. Free is listed as a laborer in census data from the late 1800s.

The Rebels were not his ultimate threat, however. He died in the summer of 1907, and his obituary was recorded in a newspaper in New Oxford, over in Adams County.

"Henry Free, a Civil War veteran of York, died from the effects of a bite of an insect on the little finger of his right hand Monday. He was working in his garden when he was bitten. His finger began to swell and he suffered such pain that a physician had to be called. The swelling settled in his right arm and side and finally caused death.

New Oxford Item, New Oxford, PA, June 6, 1907"

The John Scott Hotel, seen above in this December 2008 photograph, was among the small cluster of buildings that made up the hamlet of Hanover Junction, Pennsylvania, on June 27, 1863, as the veteran 35th Battalion, Virginia Cavalry approached following the railroad and nearby roads.

The junction was defended by Lt. Col. William Sickles, who was destined to have the worst week of his military career (perhaps of his entire life). Little did he know as the howling Confederates headed toward his line of nervous, inexperienced militia that within days, he would lose Hanover Junction, walk to Wrightsville, be captured there by John B. Gordon's Georgians, be censured by his superiors in the press and public record as a coward, and then break his leg when he fell off a railroad handcar after being paroled by the Rebels. It was certainly a bad few days for the star-crossed officer.

Before his eyes, the Rebel attack unfolded, and his men hit the panic button...

After leaving Jefferson Station in southern York County, Pennsylvania, the Hanover Branch Railroad's tracks headed northeasterly toward the Cold Spring Station. Very little remains of the roadbed in this stretch, because it has been heavily farmed over the past 145 years since Abraham Lincoln's train departed Jefferson Station for Hanover Junction and his return train to Baltimore and then Washington, D.C. However, there are a few vestiges remaining, including the piers of bridges burned on June 27, 1863, by Lt. Col. Elijah V. White's 35th Battalion, Virginia Cavalry during its mission to wreck the HBRR and the Hanover Junction rail yard.

Citizens and veteran Federal soldiers lounge on the front porch of the Hanover Junction train station in this photograph taken in the spring of 1865. Less than two years before, inexperienced recruits of the 20th Pennsylvania Volunteer Militia may have also stood on the same porch in the days before the Confederate raiders arrived on June 27, 1863. Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Previous posts:
The Hanover Branch Railroad - Part 1 of a series
The Hanover Branch Railroad - Part 2

The third week of June brought excitement for the few residents of tiny Hanover Junction, Pennsylvania. A battalion of Union troops, clad in fresh, crisp new blue uniforms and carrying shiny Springfield rifles, marched through nearby Seven Valley and encamped on a hilltop near the camp. Some accounts suggest they had a small bronze cannon with them. Unfortunately, we have no contemporary records of the reception of the locals, nor any surviving letters from residents remarking on the Union occupancy of the Junction, or of the Howard Tunnel to the north. We do have some damage claims from a couple of farmers whose lands were used as campsites for the regiment in various places in the county.

The troops' job was simple -- protect Hanover Junction, the nearby railroad bridges, and the tunnel.