Gettysburg Campaign: October 2008 Archives

In a recent post, I mentioned the fact that Company G of the 12th Pennsylvania Reserves was raised in York County in 1861 and fought the following year at Antietam. Yesterday at the York Borders store, I picked up a small book by Mark Nesbitt entitled The Gettysburg Dairies: War Journals of Two American Adversaries, chronicling the daily events of two soldiers in the Gettysburg Campaign -- one Union, one Confederate. This has been previously published as 35 Days to Gettysburg. I read it on an airplane flight yesterday and was pleased to discover that one of the two adversaries is from a soldier in Company H of the 12th. The contrast between his movements and those of a Georgian in Benning's Brigade is quite interesting.

Scott Hartwig, one of the very best park rangers at the Gettysburg National Military Park and a popular speaker, writer and tour guide, will be leading a FREE battlewalk of the Wheatfield for the members of two Civil War Round Tables, including the York CWRT. The tour will begin at 1 p.m. on Nov. 1, 2008. Meet at the Peach Orchard auto tour stop opposite the Excelsior Brigade monument. The walk will last around 2 hours.

Scott said to let everyone know to dress for the weather as we will go rain or shine ( unless it is a deluge). Also, if the weather is moderate, to advise everyone to spray for ticks. They still pick them up this time of year. Since Scott is doing the walk there is no charge for the program. He suggested that we make a donation to NPS to support the park research library.

The monument to the 32nd Massachusetts Infantry at the Loop on the Gettysburg National Military Park.

The men of the 32nd Massachusetts Infantry had been on the road for more than two weeks by the end of June, 1863. They had steadily tramped northward in alternating period of persistent downpours and intense sunshine. Men had dropped from the ranks suffering from heat exhaustion, sunstroke, badly blistered feet, and fatigue. Many hoped they would get some much needed rest and refreshment once they crossed the Mason-Dixon Line into south-central Pennsylvania.

Such would not be the case, however...

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Charlie Fennell, because of an unfortunate scheduling conflict, is no longer available to lead the planned battlewalk on Saturday, November 1. Kathy Friel of the York CWRT reports that members interested in some outdoor exercise and walking still are to meet at the Peach Orchard parking lot at 1 p.m. The Wheatfield program will still go on as planned, but with a different focus and leader

Dr. Charles Fennell spoke this past Wednesday at the monthly meeting of the York, Pennsylvania, Civil War Round Table. A humorous and knowledgeable expert on the 1863 Battle of Gettysburg, Dr. Fennell will be leading a battlewalk on November 1.

The York Civil War Round Table will be hosting a Battlefield Walk at the Gettysburg National Military Park with Charlie Fennell on Saturday, November 1, 2008, beginning at 1 P.M. Charlie will lead a detailed tour on one of the bloodiest and most fought over sections of the battlefield, the Rose Wheatfield and the nearby Stony Hill. The event is open to the public - you don't have to be an attendee at York CWRT meetings.

Meet at the Peach Orchard to begin this interesting program. The cost is only $10.00, less than a movie and a soda, and the battlewalk and exercise in the great outdoors are better for both your mind and body than a stuffy theater and some overpaid actors! So, why not spend an autumn afternoon learning a little more about an important part of the Battle of Gettysburg?

Charlie Fennell is a licensed battlefield guide (LBG) at the Gettysburg National Military Park and a professor of history at Harrisburg Community College in Gettysburg (and a colleague of my son, who teaches history at several other HACC campus settings). This is the sixth year he has spoken to the York CWRT and guests.

A view looking westward on Pennsylvania Route 234 (East Berlin Road) at Plum Run, near Round Hill.

The quiet evening of June 30, 1863, was the final night on earth for more than a thousand soldiers in the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, and a similar number for the I and XI Corps of the Army of the Potomac. Rodes' Division of Lt. Gen. Richard S. Ewell's Second Corps camped just north of Heidlersburg, Pennsylvania. Three miles east of the village was the camp of the division of Maj. Gen. Jubal A. Early, consisting of brigades from Georgia, Virginia, Louisiana, and North Carolina, as well as artillery and cavalry.

A delegation of ladies from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, volunteered to travel to the distant Gettysburg battlefield to help minister to the wounded soldiers being treated at a myriad of temporary field hospitals in and around the badly battered borough. One of the writers left her impressions of their brief pause in Wrightsville, and then a longer-than-planned sojourn in York.

She also gave a colorful word picture of their carriage ride from York to Gettysburg across what is today U.S. Route 30. It is a portrayal of pastoral beauty and serenity that is quite different than today's car ride across the modern landscape.

The ladies begin their day in Columbia, Pennsylvania, where they need to arrange for a boat to ferry them across the broad Susquehanna River because the Union militia had burned the Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge.