Recently in Gettysburg Campaign Category

Photos courtesy of Bobby Housch and the popular Gettysburg Daily blog. Taken in September 2009 with Scott Mingus while videotaping a tour of Wrightsville's Civil War heritage.

This impressive old Civil War memorial has stood for more than a century at the intersection of Hellam Street (once the famed Lincoln Highway) and Fourth Street in downtown Wrightsville, Pennsylvania. It commemorates the town as the point farthest east reached by the Confederate army during the 1863 Gettysburg Campaign. Union militia burned the mile-and-a-quarter long wooden covered bridge over the Susquehanna River to prevent the Rebels from marching into Lancaster County.

Here is an old newspaper account of the dedication of this memorial, an event that marked the apex of the summer season of 1900 for the residents of the river town.

Baltimore Sun, July 10, 1900. newsinhistory.com

Note that the reporter got his facts a tad incorrect. Brigadier General John B. Gordon, of course, did accompany his brigade to Wrightsville and in fact watered his horse in the Susquehanna River. The Union militia was the local command of Colonel Jacob G. Frick, a future Medal of Honor recipient who reported to Major General Darius N. Couch (not Crouch) who was in his Harrisburg office during the invasion.

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.

York County Heritage Trust Sanctioned Civil War guide Scott L. Mingus Sr. will present a PowerPoint presentation on the Confederate occupation of Wrightsville during the Gettysburg Campaign, with special focus on the Union defense of the town and the subsequent burning of the Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge. It was the longest covered bridge in the world, stretching nearly a mile and a quarter across the Susquehanna River.

The dinner and talk is sponsored by Historic Wrightsville Inc. and will be at 6:30 PM on Friday November 20, 2009 in the fellowship hall of the Locust Street United Methodist Church (314 Locust Street, Wrightsville, PA). It's a turkey dinner with all the trimmings for $11. For reservations call Carol Byers at 717-252-3319.

The talk is based upon Mr. Mingus's recent book, Flames Beyond Gettysburg: The Gordon Expedition, June 1863 (Columbus, Ohio: Ironclad Publishing, 2009).

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...

Harrisburg Evening Telegraph, June 18, 1863. Courtesy of NewsinHistory.com.

It is quite possible this capture took place in West Manchester Township just outside of York. The event occurred on June 17, making these four men from Albert G. Jenkins' brigade quite possibly the first Rebels to reach York County during the Gettysburg Campaign. The rest of the regiment arrived in the Dillsburg vicinity on June 27, the same day that Elijah White's 35th Battalion, Virginia Cavalry entered Hanover. Prior to my discovery of this old newspaper clipping, I was unaware of any CSA scouts physically in York County until a week later.

Glatfelter is a $1.3 billion global paper company headquartered in York, Pennsylvania. The company now operates paper mills and paper converting facilities in Ohio and Pennsylvania, as well as in Germany, France, England, Wales, and the Philippines. The company traces it roots to the Civil War era, having been founded during the first term of President Abraham Lincoln. Today, many first edition Civil War books are printed on Glatfelter paper because of its archival qualities that fully comply with Library of Congress standards for book permanence.

I have worked for the company as the Global Director of New Product Development since the summer of 2001 when I moved to York County from Cleveland's "Snow Belt." I knew the Spring Grove mill had been purchased by P.H. Glatfelter in 1863 and reopened in 1864 under new management, but I was determined to learn the "actual story behind the story."

Here is an excerpt from a book I wrote a few years ago in which I recount how Mr. Glatfelter built what became a leading international supplier of specialty papers and engineered products.

It's all because of the Battle of Gettysburg...

Major General Jubal Anderson Early, CSA, commanded the division of infantry and cavalry that devastated much of Manchester Township in central York County, Pennsylvania in the days immediately before the Battle of Gettysburg. (Library of Congress)

Manchester Township Civil War historian and author Scott L. Mingus, Sr. will present a free PowerPoint presentation and talk on Tuesday evening, October 27 at Otterbein United Methodist Church, 3241 N. George Street in Emigsville, Pennsylvania. For directions or information, call the church office at 717-764-0007.

The talk will include considerable new information on Manchester Township during the Gettysburg Campaign, including an examination of the scores of damage claims filed by local residents for horses and personal property stolen by the Confederate army during its occupation of central York County in late June 1863. Among the highlights of the talk will be a discussion of the exact locations of several Confederate campsites, including that of the Virginia brigade of Brig. Gen. William "Extra Billy" Smith, the governor of Virginia.

This old farm along North George Street near Emigsville was raided by troops under the command of General Early. Photo courtesy of York County photographer and historian Dianne Bowders, whose ancestors lived on the farm in the early 1900s.

Headstone erected in 1988 to mark the approximate spot of an earlier grave of a Confederate soldier who perished in the June 1863 Gettysburg Campaign. 2006 photo by Dr. Thomas M. Mingus, Civil War historian and author from Manchester Township, York County, PA.

This modern headstone is nestled between scenic River Road and the Susquehanna River about a mile north of the Accomac Inn in northeastern Hellam Township in York County, Pennsylvania. Of all the gravestones associated with the Army of Northern Virginia in the Gettysburg Campaign, this one is farthest east (excepting those soldiers who died in captivity or in hospitals). It is one of the three known graves of Rebel soldiers from the campaign who are buried in York County - the other marked gravesite is in York's Prospect Hill Cemetery where five Rebs are interred after dying at the temporary hospital in the local Odd Fellows Hall. An unmarked grave near Big Mount marks the final resting place of Charles Brown of the Louisiana Tigers (I recount that story in my recent book on the Tigers). And, not to forget, at one time there were several Confederate graves from the Battle of Hanover in southwestern York County, but these men were disinterred in the late 1800s and re-interred elsewhere..

So, who was this unknown Rebel who is remembered with a small headstone alongside the mighty Susquehanna?

In 1863, this brick building in downtown Hanover, Pennsylvania, was the Central Hotel. It served as the nerve center for Union cavalry under Brigadier General Hugh Judson Kilpatrick during and after the Battle of Hanover.

Thousands of cars and trucks pass through downtown Hanover, Pennsylvania, each day, often creating a traffic jam that can back up the queue at the various signals. Patience is a must for the modern traveler visiting this historic town, as similar to the nearby town of Gettysburg, a network of roads converge in Hanover conveying traffic into downtown.

That network of roads led to the June 30, 1863, unplanned collision between Major General J.E.B. Stuart's Confederate cavalrymen coming up from Maryland and a column of Federal troopers from H. Judson Kilpatrick's division.

Like the modern traffic flow, the point of congestion and contention was the intersection of the roads in downtown Hanover.