Author: garlandk

The Colwell Family

On July 30, 2010

The Colwells are important to Carlisle’s Civil War history. James Colwell joined the Carlisle Fencibles, one of the military units formed in 1861, and was elected as First Lieutenant, despite being the oldest soldier at age 48. Shortly after leaving home, he wrote to his wife Annie to explain his motives for enlisting, saying, “I did it from a sense of right and duty…[M]y dear wife, the North is right and the South wrong…[P]osterity and the whole civilized world will so decide. Of this I have no doubt.”[i] Although Annie, a southerner from Baltimore, was not happy with his decision to join the army because it left her at home with four young children, she supported her husband and often sent him packages containing chicken, butter, jelly, and whiskey while he was away. Unfortunately, James was killed at Antietam in 1862. The couple’s nearly two hundred letters from the war were compiled by their great-grandson David Colwell into a book entitled The Bitter Fruits.

The Colwell family’s house can be seen today at 145 South Pitt Street in Carlisle, PA.

[i] David G. Colwell. The Bitter Fruits: The Civil War Comes to a Small Town in Pennsylvania (Carlisle, PA: Cumberland County Historical Society, 1998), 48.

Fort Couch

By garlandk

On July 28, 2010

In Civil War (1861-1865)

Named for General Darius Couch, Fort Couch was one of three forts constructed in an attempt to control the high ground on the West Shore of the Susquehanna River to protect Harrisburg, the capitol of Pennsylvania. It was never finished because it was unneeded after the Confederates left the area. Fort Couch was built on the higher ground to the west of Fort Washington to protect it. Fort Washington, the primary fort in the area, was the only one to be brought to completion. It was located to the west of the Susquehanna River and is today on private property. The third fort’s location and name are unknown.

The forts primarily consisted of earthen platforms with mounted cannon. Because they anticipated that the Confederates would march into Harrisburg along the Carlisle Pike and across today’s Market Street Bridge, the cannons were primarily built facing the road. The forts were quickly constructed by railroad construction gangs. While some men were constructing the forts, others were busy cutting down trees and clearing the fields with fire in order to clear the line of fire to the road.

Civilians thought the forts were “formidable” and “impregnable” but military men thought they were built too quickly and would have rapidly fallen apart if attacked by cannon. These theories were not tested because the forts were never attacked.

There are many accounts that the soldiers stationed at Fort Couch did not treat the locals very well. One man noted that “the New Yorkers were here, and we fed them as long as we had anything. They turned out to be our worst enemies. They killed our hogs, chickens and so on.”[i] Another said that the New York troops were “a bad set of fellows …[who took] everything they could lay their hands on.”[ii] The men building the forts were not any better. They purposely went out of their way to antagonize Will Kiester, the only homeowner in the area, by building the fort through his vegetable garden and chopping down the trees in his front yard.

The original breastworks and the monument can be found at the intersection of 8th Street and Indiana Avenue in Lemoyne.

[i] Robert Grant Crist. Confederate Invasion of the West Shore – 1863. (Carlisle, PA: Cumberland County Historical Society, 2002), 25.

[ii] Ibid.

Locust Grove Cemetery

By garlandk

On July 23, 2010

In Civil War (1861-1865)

Locust Grove Cemetery has been known as the “colored cemetery.” Edward Shippen Burd, the grandson of the founder of Shippensburg, gave the land to the town’s African-American population in 1842. The land became a slave burial ground and was also home to Shippensburg’s first African-American church. Because the African-Americans owned the land, this site became a refuge for run-away slaves in the period of time before the Civil War. In 1861, the cemetery was officially segregated and continued to be so for the next 100 years.

Twenty-six free blacks from Shippensburg fought for the Union in the Civil War and are buried in the Locust Grove Cemetery. One group of Shippensburg brothers, the Shirks, fought for the Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry because it was the first Union regiment to allow African-Americans to fight. John and James are buried in Locust Grove, while Casper is buried in Chalmette National Cemetery in New Orleans. John spent most of his time with the 55^th Massachusetts in South Carolina. James was involved in the Fort Wagner Campaign and Sherman’s “March to the Sea” with the 54^th Massachusetts. He was honorably discharged in 1865. Casper probably fought with the 5^th Massachusetts Cavalry, but died on a boat and was buried in New Orleans surrounded by 12,000 Union soldiers who never made it home.