Results tagged “87th Pennsylvania” from Cannonball

Pennsylvania Volunteers of the Civil War is one of my favorite websites. I use it often as a reference site, as it contains a lot of useful information, including the text of Samuel Bates' classic History of the Pennsylvania Volunteers, as well as the corresponding card file of the vast majority of Keystoners who served in the Union Army during the war. The webmaster also includes a list of soldiers hailing from York County, Pennsylvania, who served in the officially mustered units, as well as several independent companies. Biographies of several men are included in the website, as well as other pertinent information of value to the local researcher.

Even more impressive is a database at the York County Heritage Trust contributed by author and researcher Dennis Brandt, who compiled every known Civil War soldier from York County. For more information, please see the YCHT webpage.

Andrew Bentz Smith was a young saddle maker from northwestern York County who answered Pennsylvania Governor Andrew Curtin's call to arms in mid-1861. He traveled to the nearest town, Wellsville, and enlisted on September 19, 1861, at the age of 21 as a corporal in Company H of the 87th Pennsylvania Infantry. In mid-winter 1863, his regiment was stationed in the Winchester, Virginia, region as part of the Eighth Corps division of Maj. Gen. Robert H. Milroy, an Indiana attorney turned soldier.

Milroy's heavy-handedness toward the civilians of the area earned him unmitigated hatred from Winchester's pro-Southern women, including the "devil diarists," whose anti-Union sentiments later became legendary. As spring approached, Smith received his first promotion, being elevated to First Sergeant on March 12.

In mid-June, the Confederate Second Corps crossed the Blue Ridge Mountains and entered the scenic Shenandoah Valley, unbeknown to Milroy's men. The 87th was among the troops garrisoning the town and surrounding regions, and some of the York County boys, including Andrew Smith, were deployed at Bunker Hill, a village not far from WInchester.

On June 13, trouble came for the regiment and for young Andrew...

Cannonball reader Jim Brown is a long-time collector of old Civil War letters. He recently read my piece on the Amish and other conscientious objectors in York County, Pennsylvania, during the war. It reminded him of one of the letters in his extensive collection, which he was kind enough to transcribe, edit a bit for clarity of sentence structure, and then forward it to me to share with our readers.

He wrote,

Dear Mr. Mingus,

"Just finished reading your wonderful piece in "Viewpoints" about the Amish during the Civil War. Thanks for writing it; I learned a lot.

As a long time collector of Civil War letters, I immediately thought of a letter in my collection from an Amish (Pennsylvania Dutch ?) lady describing what the farmers were doing as two great armies advanced into Pennsylvania only to meet at a little town called Gettysburg. The letters date is June 26, 1863.

I must warn you that it is somewhat difficult to read. Many words are spelled phonetically and I have included punctuation for easier reading. It is transcribed exactly as it was written. It's most interesting to read what they were doing with their farm animals to hide them from the rebels.

I hope you enjoy it."

With Jim's permission, here is the fascinating letter from Phebe Angeline Smith, who lived in Washington Township in northwestern York County. Members of the Smith family were visited by the Rebels during the Gettysburg Campaign. Mrs. Smith writes to her sister on June 26, 1863, the day before the Confederates begin streaming into western York County on multiple roads from Adams County.

Author Dennis W. Brandt, an expert on the 87th Pennsylvania Infantry, was one of the speakers at the June 25, 2009, Civil War Symposium at York College of Pennsylvania as part of the annual Patriot Days celebration.

According to Dennis, the 87th Pennsylvania was the only 3-year regiment raised primarily in York County during the American Civil War (some of its men came from Franklin and Adams Counties as well as York). Recruited and organized in early 1861, the 87th's main task early in the war was to guard railroads, including a stint in western Virginia (now West Virginia). In late 1862, they found themselves serving in the scenic Shenandoah Valley and by the end of the year, the 87th was part of the garrison at Winchester, Virginia.

Little did they know as they celebrated Christmas in the midst of one of the most rabid pro-Confederate towns in the Valley that, for many of the boys, the following summer WInchester would be the gateway to life as a prisoner of war. For some, December 25, 1962, would be their final Christmas on Earth.

The Stouffer name (in various spellings) is well established and well known within York County, Pennsylvania, particularly with the Stauffer cookie and cracker company, as well as a popular local grocery store. The rosters of Civil War soldiers by that name from Pennsylvania is long and varied, with Stouffers, Stoufers, and Stauffers abounding in various regiments, including York County's very own 87th Pennsylvania.

That regiment was the subject of an excellent book penned by Dennis Brandt, who will join Jim McClure, Terry Latschar, and me in presenting a special FREE symposium on the Civil War in York County at York College this Thursday from 6:30 until 9:00 PM as part of the annual Patriot Days celebration. (The symposium will be held in DeMeester Hall, which is the auditorium inside the MAC building, or Wolf Hall. It is on the left as you enter from Country Club Road. There is a parking lot right next to the building.)

Albert D. Stouffer was born in Carlisle into a farming family originally from York County. His parents eventually moved to the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, where his father died and his mother remarried. According to enlistment records, Stouffer was 5' 9" tall, blue-eyed, light haired and dark complected.

He was seventeen years old when he was pressed into the Confederate military service at the start of the war in April 1861. Stouffer soon made his escape, swam the Potomac River, and was wounded by the Rebels as he fled. He made it back to his native Keystone State, found work as a laborer in York, and celebrated his 18th birthday north of the Mason-Dixon Line. In late September of that same year, he joined the Union Army as a private in Company E of the 87th Pennsylvania. He served throughout the war in the 87th, mustering out with his regiment on June 29, 1865.

He was one of the very few men in York County to be able to claim that he served in both the Confederate Army and the Union Army during the Civil War!

As the Civil War unfolded in the spring of 1861, neither the U.S. government or the fledgling Confederate States of America were fully prepared to go to war. One of the early problems that plagued both sides was keeping track of troop movements and creating a reliable supply and logistics network that fully functioned.The latter proved quite difficult at times, even for the established U.S. War Department.

In those early days of the Rebellion, the town of York, Pennsylvania, was a fairly significant training grounds and military depot for many new regiments, not just those from the Commonwealth. Major F. J. Porter was the assistant adjutant general at Harrisburg, and his name is prominent in a long string of telegrams and dispatches from Philadelphia, Harrisburg, Washington, and other military bases as he tried to ensure that the new troops in his jurisdiction were properly armed, clothed, and fed. In York, a 57-year-old citizen, Alexander Small, was trying to raise a regiment of men from York County.

Sometimes, men fell through the cracks, as happened to a group of volunteers who were "lost" at the Hanover Junction train station in early April 1861.