Gettysburg Campaign: February 2008 Archives

During the Confederate occupation of York, a number of soldiers took the opportunity to write letters home to their families and/or sweethearts. A few of these letters survive, and I include portions of them in my two manuscripts on York in the Gettysburg Campaign (One book will at long last be in print later this year!).

Some letters may have been dropped off at the local post office for later mailing, but most were sent through the regular Confederate army mail system, which usually involved a courier on horseback riding back through the enemy-held countryside to friendly territory to post the mail. Sometimes these couriers never made it.

During the weeks following the Battle of Gettysburg, thousands of wounded soldiers passed through tiny Hanover Junction in southern York County, passing through the railroad intersection eastward on the Hanover Branch RR en route to Baltimore, Harrisburg, Philadelphia, Washington and other towns where they could receive medical care. A temporary medical facility at the junction provided assistance for soldiers in need of treatment before they could be reloaded onto cars of the Northern Central Railway. In addition, a few cars contained coffins of soldiers killed in the battle, men whose families had arranged for transport home for burial.

Hundreds of civilians also passed through Hanover Junction. Most were sightseers on an excursion to visit the now famous battlefield. Others were relief agents, medical personnel, nurses and aides, and newspaper correspondents seeking a story. Cars were overcrowded and unsanitary, with people often crowding into freight cars. Here's one story of how some clever sorts made a little extra room on one train from Hanover Junction as it passed through York County.

One of the Confederate objectives during the Gettysburg Campaign was to seize the long covered bridge across the Susquehanna River between Wrightsville in York County and Columbia in Lancaster County. Lt. General Richard S. Ewell ordered Major General Jubal Early to destroy the bridge, but Early instead decided to capture the bridge and keep it intact, cross into Lancaster County, and attack Harrisburg from the rear.

Among the defenders in the horseshoe-shaped line of earthworks just west of Wrightsville were the soldiers of the 27th Pennsylvania Volunteer Militia, an emergency regiment hastily raised in the counties northeast of Harrisburg (including many small towns along today's I-81). One Schuylkill County infantryman left a written record of his brief service in York County.

J. W. Greathead was a merchant in the Fulton County town of McConnellsburg. With his father, the 29-year-old co-owned a thriving general merchandise store, which had been cleaned out during a Confederate raid in the fall of 1862. Undaunted, the two men had restocked their inventory and resumed operations. During the 1863 Gettysburg Campaign, Confederate troops occupied McConnellsburg on several occasions. On June 29, Rebel cavalry chased off a company of the First New York Lincoln Cavalry and entered town. Fearful that the shop would be raided again, John Greathead asked an officer to post guards at the door to prevent looting. The Rebel assigned three men to the post, ordering them to "see that this man and his property are not molested."

After a while, a thankful Greathead sat down on the doorstep with one of the guards and began talking. The borough of York was among the topics of the friendly conversation.

Some of you have recently asked me about the progress of my latest manuscripts. Here is a brief update on my writing activities.

1. Human Interest Stories from the Gettysburg Campaign, Volume 3 is about halfway finished. There is no timetable for completing this, as Colecraft Industries and I have published three of these human interest books in the past 2 years, and it's time to slow down to allow the market to catch up. The formal introduction of Volume 2 will be this spring, with the same sales channels as the first two books.

2. Flames Beyond Gettysburg: The Gordon Expedition, June 1862 is finally ready for printing. The next step will be to receive the galley proofs, approve them, and then it's off to the printing press. This book is being published by Ironclad Publishing and is Volume 5 in their Discovering Civil War America series. I cover Gordon's brigade from Virginia to the burning of the Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge, and then on to Gettysburg a second time.

3. A Spirit of Daring: The Louisiana Tigers in the Gettysburg Campaign has been completed and just now sent off to the publisher. This should be in print by 2010. I have a lot of material on the Tigers' brief stay in York County, much of it rarely or never before published.

4. Brothers Divided is my latest full-color wargaming scenario book, chock full of great photos of some of the best Civil War dioramas and wargaming table layouts. Volume 1 of this new series will be published late in 2008 by Marek/Janci Design of Chicago.

Work is just beginning on my latest project - a regimental history of the 51st Ohio.

Also, watch for Roll Call to Destiny, a new book by Brent Nosworthy. I helped research and write the Seven Pines / Fair Oaks chapter.

Our family moved to York County in 2001 from the shores of scenic Lake Erie. My oldest son (now a college history professor) was soon accepted to grad school in history at Millersville, and his master's level report on the burning of the Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge inspired me to write a full-length book on John B. Gordon's brigade in the Gettysburg Campaign (and the subsequent follow-up book on the Louisiana Tigers that has just been submitted to the publisher).

Among the many resources we found for the bridge burning was a series of articles written by local professor Thomas L. Schaefer. Tom also made an interesting VHS tape which we purchased early on. Entitled Defend or Destroy?, this program offers a walking tour of Wrightsville and examines the bridge burning. It's worth a look if you haven't seen it.

Jim McClure recently posted some information about a Union courier who was killed by a farmer named George Bair near Green Ridge in southern York County. I have a little more information on the incident in my files, although in some ways, it deepens the mystery. To read Jim's background post, please click here.

Emily Bliss Souder was among the scores of people rushing to the Gettysburg battlefield to assist with the wounded. She and several companions arrived in Baltimore on Monday afternoon, July 13, but missed the last train to Hanover Junction. They explored the city and called on acquaintances. At 7:30 the next morning, the group left for Hanover Junction, reaching the intersection at 11:00 a.m. She eventually made it to Gettysburg, where she helped tend the wounded for a couple of weeks. She wrote several letters from the field hospitals, some of which mentioned her brief stays in York County.

In a recent post entitled "A Quaker in Gray," I related how one Confederate soldier from North Carolina was appalled at the massive waste of supplies and food during the brief occupation of York from June 28-30, 1863. The greediness and gluttony clashed with his Quaker upbringing, as he had been taught to be a good steward of what he had received.

Another of Jubal Early's men also commented on the massive amount of supplies that were left behind when the division marched off toward Gettysburg on the morning of June 30.

Brandy Station was the largest cavalry engagement ever fought in the United States. It marked the opening battle of the Gettysburg Campaign, and was one of the few times the Federal cavalry held its own against J.E.B. Stuart's vaunted cavaliers. Over the past few years, the battlefield has been reasonably well preserved, and the Brandy Station Foundation is to be commended for their excellent efforts.

If you are looking for a Civil War fix over the next few months, why not consider taking in one of Brandy Station's frequent lectures or tours? It's a relatively easy drive from York County through parts of historic Virginia.

My wife and I used watch a half-hour TV program entitled 8 Simple Rules for Dating my Daughter. It starred the late actor John Ritter, the son of famous country and western singer Tex Ritter, and the show was a source of entertainment and escape. While I normally detest sitcoms, this was one of the rare ones I would sit through, unlike Ritter's earlier horrible Three's Company, which I could not stand. Not long before Ritter's death at age 54, I finally came to appreciate his talents. John Ritter had a famous lineage, as well as fame and fortune.

For one ordinary 19th Century York County namesake, the Gettysburg Campaign took away a little of his fortune, but made the name John Ritter a part of local Civil War history.