{"id":3248,"date":"2010-10-08T13:51:37","date_gmt":"2010-10-08T18:51:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/?p=3248"},"modified":"2010-10-08T15:48:08","modified_gmt":"2010-10-08T20:48:08","slug":"3248","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/2010\/10\/08\/3248\/","title":{"rendered":"Burning of Chambersburg, PA (July 1864)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu\/node\/9387\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-3249\" title=\"Chambersburg\" src=\"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/files\/2010\/10\/Chambersburg-300x272.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"240\" height=\"218\" srcset=\"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/files\/2010\/10\/Chambersburg-300x272.jpg 300w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/files\/2010\/10\/Chambersburg-1024x928.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/files\/2010\/10\/Chambersburg.jpg 1448w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 240px) 100vw, 240px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>On July 30, 1864 Confederate cavalry under General <a href=\"http:\/\/hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu\/node\/6201\" target=\"_blank\">John McCausland\u2019s<\/a> command entered <a href=\"http:\/\/hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu\/node\/9387\" target=\"_blank\">Chambersburg<\/a>, Pennsylvania and demanded that residents pay $500,000 in greenbacks or $100,000 in gold. Confederates planned to use the money to compensate Virginia residents whose homes in the Shenandoah Valley were burned by Union General <a href=\"http:\/\/hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu\/node\/5946\" target=\"_blank\">David Hunter\u2019s<\/a> troops. After Chambersburg residents refused to pay, General McCausland followed General <a href=\"http:\/\/hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu\/node\/5607\" target=\"_blank\">Jubal Early\u2019s<\/a> orders and burned the town. (<a href=\"http:\/\/hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu\/node\/34402\" target=\"_blank\">this map<\/a> shows which sections of the town were burned). General McCausland\u2019s forces left the following day with Union cavalry in pursuit. <a href=\"http:\/\/hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu\/node\/9118\" target=\"_blank\">Philadelphia <\/a>resident Sidney George Fisher heard about the attack on August 1st. Confederates, as Fisher <a href=\"http:\/\/dpubs.libraries.psu.edu\/DPubS?service=UI&amp;version=1.0&amp;verb=Display&amp;handle=psu.pmhb\/1172514948\" target=\"_blank\">noted<\/a>, had \u201cset fire to the place without giving the people time to carry anything away.\u201d Fisher believed that the Confederate actions were the results of the \u201cprolonged\u201d conflict. \u201cThe barbarous act shows what a bitter spirit is animating the contest,\u201d as Fisher explained. The Bangor (ME) <em>Whig and Courier<\/em>, a Republican paper, <a href=\"http:\/\/hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu\/node\/34401\" target=\"_blank\">also expressed<\/a> \u201c[sympathy for] the suffers at Chambersburg.\u201d Yet \u201cif the atrocious outrage shall awake Pennsylvania to the performance of duties she has long and shamefully neglected in her own defense,\u201d the editor argued that this incident \u201cwill in the end prove to be one of the greatest blessings which has been vouchsafed us since the war began.\u201d\u00a0You can learn more about this attack in Benjamin Schneck\u2019s <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.archive.org\/details\/burningofchamberpp00schn\" target=\"_blank\">The Burning of Chambersburg<\/a><\/em> (1864) and Everard H. Smith\u2019s \u201cChambersburg: Anatomy of a Confederate Reprisal,\u201d <em>American Historical Review<\/em> (1991).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On July 30, 1864 Confederate cavalry under General John McCausland\u2019s command entered Chambersburg, Pennsylvania and demanded that residents pay $500,000 in greenbacks or $100,000 in gold. Confederates planned to use the money to compensate Virginia residents whose homes in the Shenandoah Valley were burned by Union General David Hunter\u2019s troops. After Chambersburg residents refused to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,171,156,172,12],"tags":[161],"class_list":["post-3248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-civil-war-1861-1865","category-historic-periodicals","category-images","category-letters-diaries","category-maps","tag-battles-soldiers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3248"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3258,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3248\/revisions\/3258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}