Results tagged “Warrington Township” from Cannonball

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...

Mount Top is a tiny hamlet tucked in northwestern York County, Pennsylvania, not far from Dillsburg. Today, it's a whistle stop, as cars blow through the place on State Route 74. Few if any of the passersby are aware (or care) that they are traveling the same route as parts of Major General J.E.B. Stuart's cavalry during the Gettysburg Campaign of the American Civil War.

On the late afternoon of July 1, 1863, a long line of Confederate cavalrymen passed through this hilltop community en route to Dillsburg from their campsite at Dover. In command of this column was veteran Brigadier General Fitzhugh Lee, one of the South's better cavaliers. He led his own brigade of Virginia horse soldiers, as well as another Virginia brigade under Colonel John R. Chambliss, Jr. Perhaps 2,500 soldiers rode through Mount Top, and foraging patrols scoured the countryside in all directions, rounding up horses and mules, as well as seizing supplies and food of material value to the Old Dominion saddle soldiers.

Shortly after leaving Dover, Pennsylvania, in the early afternoon of July 1, 1863, Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia divided his cavalry force into two wings. One group, consisting of the brigades of Brig. Gen. Fitzhugh Lee and Col. John R. Chambliss, Jr., rode through Harmony Grove and Wellsville to reach the rendezvous point at Dillsburg. The other wing, under Stuart's direct control, was the brigade of South Carolina planter Wade Hampton III and a lengthy and slow-moving train of 125 captured Union supply wagons. It headed up the Carlisle Road aka Old State Road (parts of which are today's Route 74) through the crossroads at Rossville.

Over my Christmas break from my duties as a scientist at a paper company, I have made a detailed analysis of the movements of Hampton's force, and it's very clear that he sent out patrols that ranged as far east as four miles from the main column, which kicked up a massive cloud of dust on the Carlisle Road that could be seen for miles according to eyewitnesses.

Before arriving in Rossville, At least one large column of Hampton's troopers rode up Bull Road, scouring the area for horses and mules.

The Krall family owned a fair amount of land off Lisburn Road in Warrington Township near Round Top, including much of the land on the eastern side of the intersection of today's State Route 74 and the state game land road. There, they operated a general dry goods store. A little farther up Lisburn Road is the old farmhouse owned by Jacob D. Krall. On a warm summer afternoon in 1863, a patrol of Confederate cavalry from Brigadier General Wade Hampton III's brigade of Jeb Stuart's division passed by this farm.

They did not leave empty handed.