"The Rebels have come! The Rebels have come!"
As news spread throughout southwestern York County, Pennsylvania, on Saturday afternoon, June 27, 1863, that Confederate cavalry was raiding f arms and stealing horses in the region, hundreds of residents went into their barns, stables, and fields and made preparations to take their horses and livestock to safety. Some hid their animals in out-of-the way woods, ravines, or hollows. Others took to the roads in an attempt to make it to Lancaster County or deeper into rural southern York County, correctly (as it turned out) assuming the Rebels would concentrate their raiding to those towns and farms along the railroad.
This snippet from a period Baltimore newspaper is illustrative of the chaos and migration caused by the raid of Lt. Col. Elijah V. White and the 35th Battalion,Virginia Cavalry.
