You might not to be too surprised to find Civil War artifacts in York County around Hanover, where Union General Kilpatrick met up with Confederate General Stuart, or near Wrightsville, where Union troops dug in to defend the bridge crossing the Susquehanna River against Confederate General Gordon. But--a cannonball in northern York County?
The article accompanying the photo above, from microfilm at the York County Heritage Trust Library/Archives of the July 2, 1948 York Dispatch, reads:
CONFEDERATE CANNONBALL?--Paul Boring, York RD 1 tavern owner holds a cannonball he found while mowing a field on a 44-acre tract he owns near Maytown in the Pinchot Park area. He believes the cannonball fell from a supply wagon when Confederate troops marched toward Carlisle in the Civil War. Boring, whose ancestors were well rooted in the area during the Civil War, recalls his grandparents relating stories of how Confederate troops sought food and horses in that area of the county. Boring says he was removing litter from the field when he stepped on a round object sticking about an inch above the ground. He dug it up and discovered it was a cannonball, still in good condition.
The explanation sounds like a good guess to me. Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart was all over York County during those last days of June, 1863, dragging a captured wagon train with him. His refusal to abandon the prize has been blamed for his late arrival at the Battle of Gettysburg. You just never know what might turn up where.
Click here for my previous post on a Civil War sword unearthed near Hanover.
Hi June!
Thanks so much for posting this interesting article from 60+ years ago. The round cannonballs were widely used for Napoleon guns, a smoothbore weapon typically used by the infantry. Stuart's own artillery was 3" Rifles, which fired a cylindrical shell, not a cannonball. Assuming this artifact was indeed from Stuart's column, it is likely the shell came from a captured Union supply wagon. The caveat is that the supply train is not known to have been that far east (it went through Harmony Grove to Wellsville).
Another intriguing possibility is that this was never part of Stuart's wagons. Many farmers in Adams and York counties are known to have visited the Gettysburg battlefield to steal military debris. Federal cavalry tried controlling this relic trade, often without success. Perhaps a Dover Township resident took this, and then lost it along the road en route home, or threw it away when he spotted a roving Union cavalry patrol (such patrols were all over York County looking for Rebel deserters, collecting more than 100 abandoned Rebel horses, and quizzing residents about stolen military goods.
Thanks Scott, I was hoping you would chime in. If Stuart's captured wagons weren't in the immediate vicinity where the cannonball was found, it does deepen the mystery. It could have been a "souvenir," as you suggest. Could it even have been a round ball of iron used for some other purpose and not a real cannonball at all?
June,
Back in 1956 when Glatfelter was adding the new wing to house their latest paper machine, two round cannonballs were dug up along the Codorus Creek. These are believed to have been cast by the forge that preceded the paper mill (1840s / 1850s). It is conceivable that the ball found in Dover may have also predated the Civil War and had no relation at all to the Confederate incursion into York County.
Scott