Gettysburg Campaign: March 2008 Archives

Over the next week or so, I will present the text of an old article that appeared in a now-defunct newspaper, the Gettysburg Compiler, regarding the Confederate occupation of York. A significant portion of the account is from a York resident who was interviewed just days after the raid by a correspondent. His description is a nice summary of the key events as Jubal Early took possession of York. The last week of June 1863 was a trying time for most Pennsylvanians, many of whom simply wanted to be left alone. Few had expected the Civil War to come to their doorsteps.

We start with an early 20th Century reporter's summation of the newspaper's 1863 status, especially with an enemy army openly operating in the general region and more troops perhaps on the way... Here is the opening paragraph from the June 28, 1911, Gettysburg Compiler.

Mary Fisher was the wife of the judge of York, Robert Fisher. She had witnessed the march of John Gordon’s Georgia brigade through the town on June 28, and had suffered through the subsequent occupation of the town by Jubal Early, who had threatened her husband that he would burn the locked county courthouse to the ground if Judge Fisher did not produce the keys. Mary would be among those York residents who ministered to the wounded following the Battle of Gettysburg.

Corporal Ernest Simpson of Battery E, 1st Rhode Island Artillery lived a short and tragic life. Born in Leipsic, Germany, as a young man he had quarreled repeatedly with his parents, who strongly disapproved of a particular love affair. Despondent, Simpson left home and migrated to London, England, where, alone and brooding, he tried to commit suicide but failed. Simpson bought passage on a boat to the United States and sailed to America to start over. He eventually settled in York, where he lived at the start of the Civil War. On October 7, 1861, a train arrived carrying Battery E, 1st Rhode Island Artillery, and, "attracted by the great reputation of Rhode Island batteries," Simpson decided on the spot to enlist. He fully expected to be put out of his misery on the battlefield.

Photo by Randy Drais. His ancestor may have been treated in this field hospital after the Battle of Gettysburg.

Randy Drais, a lifelong resident of York, has created an interesting new website specifically pertaining to the Battle of Gettysburg. Covering a broad and diverse range of topics, Randy's site has something for everyone, including a page with ideas to help children understand the battle and the Civil War experience.

Randy has pages devoted to out-of-the way locations that often are of interest to even the casual battlefield tramper, as well as pages for side-trips (including York and Hanover), recaps of National Park Service battlewalks, interesting monuments, and much, much more! For those who want to dive deeper into the battle's details, Randy includes an array of weblinks and books organized by topic and battle sequence.

During the Civil War era, by far the largest number of foreign-born soldiers on both sides came from Germany or Ireland, although dozens of countries were represented in the ranks, including a fair number of Scandinavians. Irishmen were prominent in both armies, and there were many tiomes in the war that all-Irish Union regiments battled Gaelic troops in gray.

An estimated 185,000 Irish-born soldiers fought in the Civil War, with the majority on the Federal side (145,000). Georgia and Louisiana had significant Irish units, and one almost all-Irish Confederate regiment camped in York.

To many Confederates, Pennsylvania was a "land flowing with milk and honey, " a place one amazed Rebel thought flowed with "such oceans of bread as I had ever seen before." Food was plentiful, the farms fertile, orchards overflowing with fruit, and the climate fair. Hundreds of men straggled or deserted during the Gettysburg Campaign, and a few evaded capture and stayed in the area. Some came back to PA after the war and settled down, and several Pennsylvania cemeteries contain the remains of former Confederates who became Keystoners. Descendants of Rebels still live in multiple communities, including a few here in York County.

Other Rebels headed to Canada, and some headed west to start a new life (often under an assumed name).

The Lancaster Civil War Round Table will welcome Gettysburg Licensed Battlefield Guide Wayne Wachsmuth to the Lititz Public Library (651 Kissel Hill Road in Lititz) at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, March 13, 2008, as he presents "Stuart's Ride: Mission Impossible? A Logistical Appraisal".

This program is free and open to the public. Registration is recommended by emailing your name, phone number and number attending to srihn@lititzlibrary.org or call the library at 717-626-2255. Come on out and enjoy an evening with Wayne Wachsmuth!

James Ashworth was born in 1836 in the town of Bury in Lancashire, a rural county in northwest England along the Atlantic coast / Irish Sea. He emigrated with his parents to the U.S., and the family settled near Holmesburg, northeast of Philadelphia. He moved to Frankford, graduated from Philadelphia High School, and entered the transoceanic shipping business, working for a firm that operated cargo packets to Liverpool, England.

With the outbreak of the Civil War, Ashworth accompanied General Robert Patterson's force down to Maryland as a civilian volunteer. He took up a musket and fought a Rebel raiding party that was attempting to wreck the C+O Canal near Williamsport, but was arrested by the citizens the next day as a rebel spy and put on trial.

Background posts: Introduction, Part 2, The Rebels and the U.S. Post Office, Part 3, Part 4.

Here is the next letter, which may have all been written by the same man, likely a member of a Maryland cavalry company who hustled northward with a companion to rejoin his outfit near York. Failing to find it, he camped with the 17th Virginia Cavalry:

June 29, 1863 York, Pa:

After a long and roundabout wild goose chase, we arrived here about eight o'clock last night, and found Jackson's foot cavalry in full possession of the town... The notorious rebels are under the command of General Early. They are in high spirits, well dressed, and all they want is to fight...

Background post: 2008 York CWRT schedule

Mark your calendars!!! The March 19, 2008, meeting of the York Civil War Round Table will be an interesting look at the monumentation at the Gettysburg National Military Park. Dick Simpson will be talking on "Gettysburg: America's Great Art Park." He will take a close look at the outstanding carved and cast battlefield monuments, and will show slides of many popular monuments.

As always, the event (and parking) is free to the public. It will be at 7 P.M. 3/19 at the York County Heritage Trust on East Market Street in downtown York.

This Confederate 2-cent stamp was issued in 1863, the same year as the Gettysburg Campaign.

Background posts: Introduction, Part 2, The Rebels and the U.S. Post Office, Part 3.

The first couple of letters in this series were rather impersonal, sticking to the basic military facts. This one is a little more personal. The writer could never have known his family would never receive the letter, and that, instead, Yankees would be the first people to read the note. It would later be published in a popular periodical for all to read, and 145 years later, in something called the Internet.

Hundreds of men rejoined the CSA army on the road after being released from parole (as prisoners of war) or from medical facilities; the roads north were filled with small parties of men who struggled to find their regiments. Some did not rejoin until after Gettysburg and the army was heading back to the South.

Trivia: Jefferson Davis was the first living president depicted on an American postage stamp.

Background posts: Introduction, Part 2, The Rebels and the U.S. Post Office.

The Confederate Post Office was established in February 1861, and in early March, John H. Reagan, a firebrand Texan, was named as the Confederacy's first (and only) Postmaster General. For the first few months of the war, regular mail between the North and South continued using private express delivery companies, before finally being suspended on June 1. A few outfits continued to smuggle mail for some time thereafter, although formal mail service between the warring states could only be done via a formal flag of truce.

Today one of my sons and I toured the Hershey Museum for the first time (before our twentieth trip through the Disney-like “factory tour”). From a history perspective, the museum contained a few Civil War items from Milton S. Hershey’s private collection, including a Confederate tin canteen from Gettysburg with a bullet hole through it on both sides. Also, Hershey had a hand-carved wooden cane with a bullet from Devil’s Den imbedded in the wood.

The museum contains a lot of Civil War-period Pennsylvania German furniture, dishes, musical instruments, clocks, household goods, and other things that would have been very familiar to the Trostles, Weikerts, Codoris, Spanglers, and other Gettysburg residents during the war years.

Background post: Introduction.

During the Gettysburg Campaign, more than 10,000 individual Confederate soldiers and troopers passed through York County, roughly half infantry and half cavalry as a general breakdown. They were from a variety of states, from South Carolina (the cradle of Secession) to one of the last states to secede, Virginia. Among these soldiers was the division of Jubal Early, which occupied York from June 28 - June 30. Infantrymen from North Carolina and Virginia artillerymen were stationed downtown at the Fair Grounds and/or Penn Commons, with Louisianans lounging in the creekside area west of today's Harley-Davidson factory and on the hills just west of the Codorus. Virginians were in Emigsville, Frystown, and East York, along with a company of Maryland cavaliers. More Virginia artillery crowned the imposing Webb's Hill south of town. Georgians camped at first near Wrightsville, and then along the Carlisle Pike in western York.

Scores of men took the welcome break to write home; many of these letters have been preserved. As mentioned in the introductory post, a packet of letters never made it back to Dixie and was captured near Hanover. Here are excerpts from one of these lost letters, perhaps from a cavalryman who accompanied Gordon's column to the river....