Artist Lewis Miller's depiction of the occupation of downtown York by the Confederate army in late June 1863. (YCHT).
Francis Wallace was a veteran newspaper editor in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania. When the Confederate army marched down the Shenandoah Valley toward the Potomac River, Wallace and several of the employees of his paper enlisted in one of the emergency militia regiments, the 27th Volunteer Militia. Wallace sent back frequent reports to the remaining newspapermen, which were later published in the local paper in Pottsville, PA. These accounts are often colorful, spiced occasionally with humor, and present the thoughts and opinions of one participant in the Gettysburg Campaign.
Here are Lieutenant Wallace's initial thoughts when he and his colleagues (stationed in Columbia just east of the Susquehanna River) first learned from refugees crossing the toll bridge that York had surrendered to the Confederates.
