Cover art from a 1991 book, The Story of the Northern Central Railway, by Robert L. Gunnarsson, Greenberg Publications.

All over York County, from the outskirts of Abbottstown to the west across the turnpike to Wrightsville and from Hanover to the southwest up to Dillsburg (and dozens of other towns and hundreds of farms), residents took stock of their losses. For some, the damage was relatively light - as low as a single horse. For others, their livelihoods had been destroyed (for example, a large milling operation in Wrightsville that had burned down, displacing the workers). In the next few days, I will outline some of the damage in York County (and perhaps beyond) caused by the Confederates.

I thank York County railroad buff, author, and historian Ivan E. Frantz, Jr. (and a colleague of mine at work) for sharing the following very interesting information he has gleaned from the files of the Northern Central Railway, one of the hardest hit companies.

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Life here in York County, Pennsylvania, was slowly returning to normal, although, for many, the trauma and scars from the Confederate invasion would go away slowly. Efforts continued to clean the U.S, Army Military Hospital on Penn Common, even as patients from the Battle of Gettysburg began arriving. Work crews assessed the damage to the county's railroad bridges, and telegraphers in Hanover and Hanover Junction worked to restore that vital communications link.

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Jeb Stuart's three brigades of veteran Confederate cavalry rose in fields surrounding Dover and leisurely ate their breakfasts. Foraging patrols scoured neighboring farms for several miles looking for horses, mules, forage, horsehoes, and other supplies of military interest. They paid for them with worthless CSA currency or bank drafts to be paid by the Confederacy after the war ended. Scores of Union prisoners captured in Maryland or at the Battle of Hanover are paroled, released, and sent walking back down today's Route 74 to York. By early afternoon, Stuart's men are back in the saddle, as multiple columns wind their way through northwestern York County through Wellsville, Rossville, and Dillsburg, where the brigade of wealthy South Carolina planter and politician Wade Hampton III will camp for the night on the Mumper fruit farm.

Meanwhile, in the rest of the county...

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Maj. Gen. Jubal Early's veteran Confederate division, one of the hardest fighting units in the Army of Northern Virginia, departs from camps near Mummasburg, Gettysburg, and Hunterstown and heads eastward toward the prize they had been ordered by Richard S. Ewell to capture - the prosperous town of York. Early's main column - 3/4 of his artillery, all but one company of the 17th Virginia Cavalry, and the brigades of Ike Avery and Extra Billy Smith trudged from Mummasburg toward Hunterstown, picking up the Louisiana Tigers en route. John Gordon's Georgians left the Wolf farm just east of Gettysburg and marched out the turnpike (today's U.S. 30). It would be a leisurely march for these two columns this day, one that would end at Big Mount and Farmers, respectively.

It was the third column that would create the military excitement on this day - White's Comanches which had terrorized much of northern Maryland and had earned a reputation for lightning raids on Union supply lines. Now, their war whoops would be heard in southwestern York County...

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Tucked away near Seven Valleys in southern York County, Pennsylvania, is the tiny hamlet of Hanover Junction. Now mostly known to locals as an important rest stop and parking lot on the York Rail Trail, the old train station has been in existance for more than 150 years. It has been altered, renovated, added onto, and subtracted from during its long history. Restored to approximate its 1863 appearance, today the station houses restrooms for the bike riders and hikers, as well as a small museum that is usually manned by volunteer guides during summer weekends.

If you have never visited this site before, it is well worth a couple of hours some Saturday or Sunday afternoon. Few casual visitors realize that a minor Civil War skirmish occurred at the station on June 27, 1863, when Lt. Colonel Elijah V. White's 35th Battalion, Virginia Cavalry, raided Hanover Junction and drove off its Union defenders, elements of the 20th Pennsylvania Volunteer Militia.

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During the weeks following the Battle of Gettysburg, thousands of wounded soldiers passed through tiny Hanover Junction in southern York County, passing through the railroad intersection eastward on the Hanover Branch RR en route to Baltimore, Harrisburg, Philadelphia, Washington and other towns where they could receive medical care. A temporary medical facility at the junction provided assistance for soldiers in need of treatment before they could be reloaded onto cars of the Northern Central Railway. In addition, a few cars contained coffins of soldiers killed in the battle, men whose families had arranged for transport home for burial.

Hundreds of civilians also passed through Hanover Junction. Most were sightseers on an excursion to visit the now famous battlefield. Others were relief agents, medical personnel, nurses and aides, and newspaper correspondents seeking a story. Cars were overcrowded and unsanitary, with people often crowding into freight cars. Here's one story of how some clever sorts made a little extra room on one train from Hanover Junction as it passed through York County.

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Some of you have recently asked me about the progress of my latest manuscripts. Here is a brief update on my writing activities.

1. Human Interest Stories from the Gettysburg Campaign, Volume 3 is about halfway finished. There is no timetable for completing this, as Colecraft Industries and I have published three of these human interest books in the past 2 years, and it's time to slow down to allow the market to catch up. The formal introduction of Volume 2 will be this spring, with the same sales channels as the first two books.

2. Flames Beyond Gettysburg: The Gordon Expedition, June 1862 is finally ready for printing. The next step will be to receive the galley proofs, approve them, and then it's off to the printing press. This book is being published by Ironclad Publishing and is Volume 5 in their Discovering Civil War America series. I cover Gordon's brigade from Virginia to the burning of the Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge, and then on to Gettysburg a second time.

3. A Spirit of Daring: The Louisiana Tigers in the Gettysburg Campaign has been completed and just now sent off to the publisher. This should be in print by 2010. I have a lot of material on the Tigers' brief stay in York County, much of it rarely or never before published.

4. Brothers Divided is my latest full-color wargaming scenario book, chock full of great photos of some of the best Civil War dioramas and wargaming table layouts. Volume 1 of this new series will be published late in 2008 by Marek/Janci Design of Chicago.

Work is just beginning on my latest project - a regimental history of the 51st Ohio.

Also, watch for Roll Call to Destiny, a new book by Brent Nosworthy. I helped research and write the Seven Pines / Fair Oaks chapter.

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Emily Bliss Souder was among the scores of people rushing to the Gettysburg battlefield to assist with the wounded. She and several companions arrived in Baltimore on Monday afternoon, July 13, but missed the last train to Hanover Junction. They explored the city and called on acquaintances. At 7:30 the next morning, the group left for Hanover Junction, reaching the intersection at 11:00 a.m. She eventually made it to Gettysburg, where she helped tend the wounded for a couple of weeks. She wrote several letters from the field hospitals, some of which mentioned her brief stays in York County.

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Civil War-era locomotive from the PRR

York County has long been known as a town that cares for its military service personnel. Over the past few years, the local news on WGAL TV-8 has frequently shown clips of National Guardsmen and other soldiers returning from overseas assignments, often to joyous receptions and parties with all kinds of good food. Jim McClure's excellent book on local World War II history describes some of the homecomings after that conflict, and I have read similar accounts for other wars.

During the Civil War, as regiments left Camp Scott on the old fairgounds on York's east side, they were often treated to showers of flowers as they marched through the principal streets to the train station to go off to the front. At times, Southern Pennsylvania's hospitality even extended to soldiers merely passing through York.

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Confederate POWs taken at the Battle of Gettysburg

In my last entry, I briefly looked at an account of the first Confederate soldiers to be taken prisoner in York County during the Gettysburg Campaign - straggling cavalrymen seized by Hanover citizens and turned over to the military. During the subsequent week, dozens more Confederates would be rounded up by various Union cavalry patrols, or taken in battle in the fighting at Hanover on June 30, 1863. With the exception of the prisoners taken at the Battle of Hanover, the majority of these POWs were stragglers, deserters, or men who had otherwise become separated from their commands.

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During much of the Gettysburg Campaign, postmasters and mail carriers throughout south-central Pennsylvania feared they would be specifically targeted by oncoming Confederate forces. Paranoia swept the region, and there are dozens of stories about postmasters who hid their mail and parcels to avoid them being lost to the Rebs, and many Federal employees fled to avoid capture. Did they really have to fear the Confederates or was it merely mass hysteria?

The answer appears to be a resounding yes, in many cases, to both questions. As Richard Ewell's Second Army Corps entered Pennsylvania in late June of 1863, they did target post offices and Federal installations. Chambersburg's postmaster fled to Harrisburg, taking his mailbags with him, but the postmasters of Fairfield and Greencastle were not so fortunate. They were indeed captured and eventually taken into Virginia as prisoners of war, spending considerable time in Confederate jails. Postmaster David Beuhler of Gettysburg packed his most valuable government property into a valise and headed for Hanover in the train. One of his mail carriers, fleeing down Baltimore Pike, inadvertantly dropped a mail bag in Anna Garlach's yard, but she secreted it so the Rebels would not take it. Harrisburg's postmaster eventually fled, as did many other Federal employees.

What about York County's post offices?

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A recent York Town Square blog entry by Jim McClure regarding the Howard Tunnel prompted me to write about the venerable tunnel's Civil War history. Jim tells a little about the overall history of this impressive passageway, through which the Northern Central Railway ran during the war years.

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The tiny hamlet of Hanover Junction in southern York County is perhaps best known today as a stop on the Rail Trail, with restrooms, parking, and shade. During the Civil War, it played an important role as both a railroad and telegraph interchange. A telegraphy school produced several well trained young operators who fanned out to other area telegraph offices, spreading the new form of communication. During the Gettysburg Campaign, these stations would provide an important linkage to relay messages to Federal commanders in Washington, Baltimore, York, and Harrisburg. Two railroads intersected at Hanover Junction, the north-south running Northern Central Railway and the east-west Hanover Branch Railroad. A cavalry raid in June 1863 temporarily suspended both telegraph and rail service.

Recently, local service organizations have undertaken a campaign to place some old Civil War-era cannons at Hanover Junction as a memorial. These vintage gun tubes used to adorn Penn Park in York. Here is an e-mail from Ivan Frantz, the secretary of the PDC, announcing the new Hanover Junction monument.

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