Other places: January 2008 Archives

Typical interior of a small country store

Boredom. Routine. Monotony... By June 1863, the Army of Northern Virginia had spent more than half a year relatively idle in its camps since the Battle of Fredericksburg, with the exception of the flurry of activity in May at Chancellorsville. As the soldiers headed northward for the summer campaign, they passed through dozens of small towns in Virginia, with most of the businesses barren from the hardships of the war. When the troops got to Pennsylvania, soldiers marveled at the well-stocked stores and shops, and there are scores, if not hundreds, of surviving letters and diaries that discuss individual Confederates' shopping sprees.

York County was no exception. While the soldiers were often gleeful at the rare chance to leisurely shop for whatever goods they needed, the local merchants were not at all happy about the situation.

The Louisiana Tigers left the Willoughby Run / Oak Hill area northwest of Gettysburg on June 27, 1863, and marched through East Berlin into western York County, finally camping late that afternoon near Big Mount. The roads were "exceedingly muddy," and scores of men straggled in the slop and mire. A few never rejoined the ranks, taking the opportunity to slip away and desert. An old book has a cryptic entry for Private Charles Brown of the 8th Louisiana, who was "supposed to have been killed by the citizens of Penn[sylvania]."

Thomas L. Kane, US Volunteers

Elements of the Union Army occasionally camped in York County for varying periods of time. Usually, the troops were passing through the region and stopped for an extended rest break while awaiting orders to march elsewhere. One such regiment was the 13th Pennsylvania Reserves (also known as the 42nd Infantry Regiment), filled with woodsmen and lumbermen from the mountains of western Pennsylvania. The men wore the white tails of deer in their caps and became known as the "Bucktails."

They were under the command of Colonel Thomas L. Kane. Before the war, the Philadelphia native had been an influential friend of the controversial Mormons and helped mediate an end to the Utah War in 1858. Colonel Kane and his Bucktails spent time in the autumn of 1862 in Shrewsbury in southern York County, where they were accused of wanton destruction of private property.