The Civil War Era in Cumberland Valley, PA

The Soldiers Aid Society of Carlisle, Pennsylvania formed on August 25, 1863 and disbanded sometime in 1865. The organization provided the thousands of men who enlisted in the Union Army with blankets ,clothing ,as well as local fruits produce. Women were the driving force and chose to spearhead these efforts because they felt they had a better knowledge of what would comfort the soldiers and the domestic skills to enable their work to be successful. In addition, the Soldiers Aid Society assisted with burials and grave decoration for the soldiers that died in battle.

The women and men of the Soldiers Aid Society provided a welcoming place for the soldiers before and after they left for battle by exchanging tokens of affection with the soldiers such as handkerchiefs explained by James W. Sullivan in Boyhood Memories: ” The women of Carlisle had brought out from their scantily stocked larders the essentials of a welcoming reception.” The Carlisle American also describes the women’s actions “by expressing tokens of love but cheerfulness” ( Carlisle American. 25 April 1863. Back at Home section).

The church dynamic was vital to the success of the society because many of the members belonged to the First Presbyterian Church of Carlisle and as a result attracted other religious organizations of the community and surrounding areas. The Soldier Aid Society of Carlisle worked with many Sanitary Commissions and ” resoleved a draft for a systematci plan for securing contrubutions in the town”, according to the American Volunteer (American Volunteer, Central Fair in Aid and the Sanitray Commission. Back at Home section).

The organization also involved many social classes of people. The society allowed the whole community to have a common goal no matter if you were an educated man or a domestic homemaker. Motivations varied from patriotic or Christian duty to personal reasons, but they all brought people together in unity to aid in the war effort and provide solace to each other while loved ones were in harms way.

Many Soldiers Aid Societies existed at the time that were similar to that of the one in Carlisle. The United States Sanitary Commission of the Cleveland Branch provides the first annual report of the Soldiers Aid Society of Cleveland, the area where the first soldiers aid societies began. Google Books provides a preview of Civil War Sisterhood: The U.S. Sanitary Commission and Women’s Politics in Transition which discusses the relationship between Sanitary Commisions and Solders Aid Societies during the Civil War.

William P. Willey’s April 1861 letters

By solnitr

On June 23, 2010

In Civil War (1861-1865)

William Princeton Willey, Dickinson College Class of 1862, was determined to graduate even though all odds seemed to be against him. As a junior in college, Willey’s world erupted as his country went to war with itself after the battle of Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861. Ten days later Willey wrote his father, the future West Virginia senator Waitman T. Willey, of the precarious situation he was in as a Southern student in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. William sent two letters to his father within a one week period: one on April 22 and the second on April 29. Within this week William perceived that the situation in Carlisle had changed dramatically. In his first letter, William described the excited mobs of townspeople at the train station: “women bidding adieu to their husbands and sons.” Though a committee from the town approached the college’s president, Dr. Herman Merills Johnson, informing him that Southern students must either leave or take an oath of allegiance, William told his father that he would try to stay as long as he could: “I fear nothing yet. The only ones that are in danger are the students from S.C.” One week later, William and his friend McCants were the only Southern students left. Now however, Carlisle residents complimented William on his dedication for remaining at school. More often, William wrote, he and McCants were approached for their opinion as Southerners because “in Carlisle the prominent desire seems to be that of getting a hold on Jeff Davis.” William’s two letters document the remarkable shift in emotions of Carlisle residents after the immediate shock of Fort Sumter wore off—by April 29th it appeared that the women of Carlisle no longer felt it necessary to arm themselves with broomsticks against a possible Southern attack. After graduating, William P. Willey went on to earn his law degree and became a law professor at West Virginia University, where he founded the West Virginia Law Review in 1894.

Carlisle Fencibles

By mckelveb

On June 23, 2010

In Civil War (1861-1865)

After the outbreak of the Civil War, four volunteer companies originally consisting of fifty to one hundred men were recruited in Carlisle, Pennsylvania on April 19, 1861. On April 21, the officers were chosen with Captain Robert M. Henderson, in charge of Company A of the 36th Regiment, 7th Pennsylvania Reserve Corps. Henderson was assisted in command by First Lieutenant James S. Colwell, Second Lieutenant Erkuries Beatty, and First Sergeant John D. Adair. These men received the nickname “Carlisle Fencibles” in part because most of its members belonged to a gymnastic club and because a “fencible” is a defender of a country. The company spent a two month period of relative inactivity marching and drilling until the soldiers left for Camp Wayne in West Chester, Pennsylvania on June 6. Before the men departed they received a satin flag from Mrs. Samuel Alexander, a granddaughter of Ephraim Blaine, that, according to David G. Colwell, had the inscription “May God defend the right!” The 7th Pennsylvania Reserves went on to fight in the Battles of Gaines’ Mill, Bull Run, and Antietam while suffering great losses. A more thorough description of the experiences of the company is available on Google Books in Samuel B. Bates’ History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-65 . The wartime experience of one member of the Carlisle Fencibles, John Taylor Cuddy, is chronicled through letters he sent home to his family in Carlisle. His correspondence is available as a part of Dickinson College’s “Their Own Words” digital archive which provides a picture of the experience of a young Carlisle Fencible during the Civil War.

Outbreak of War at Dickinson College

By rainwatj

On June 22, 2010

In Civil War (1861-1865)

The Dickinson College student body was evenly divided between Northern and Southern students who fought on both sides of the conflict. The split is well documented in Dickinson College class of 1861 student Francis Benjamin Sellers’ Autograph Album for the Phi Kappa Sigma Fraternity. Taken from the Phi Kappa Sigma News Letter, Fall, 1954:

“On April 21, 1861, Epsilon held its last meeting shortly past midnight. All of the members gathered in the room of John. E McCahan and Francis B. Sellers in West College and dispensed with the usual forms of business so that the brothers could say their last farewells before leaving for their respective armies.”

Dickinson College students expected to encounter one another on the battlefield, which is reflected in the comments left in the autograph album. Howard Kennedy Weber class of 1863 remarked: “If I wear the “Phi Kap” badge, don’t shoot me Frank.”

Other Dickinson College students featured in Sellers’ album that fought in the conflict include fellow classmates Elbridge Hoffman Gerry, James Glasgow Archer, William Miller Ogilby and Ernest Dudley Martin.

The John Taylor Cuddy Correspondence

By solnitr

On June 22, 2010

In Civil War (1861-1865)

Sixteen-year-old John Taylor Cuddy left his home in Carlisle, Pennsylvania to enlist in Company A of the 36th Pennsylvania Infantry on June 5, 1861. Over the next two years, Cuddy wrote 77 letters home to his family describing his experiences as a soldier in the Union army. Cuddy’s correspondence is available online as part of Dickinson College’s “Their Own Words” digital archive. Over the course of his service in the army, Cuddy wrote his parents full of exuberance to go “lick the south” from his training camp at Fort Wayne, with a tempered tone of experience after fighting in the battle of Gaines’ Mill, and with a critical analysis of “old abe[‘s]” Emancipation Proclamation. At the Battle of the Wilderness, which lasted from May 5 to 7, 1864, Cuddy’s regiment was captured and sent to Andersonville, a Confederate prisoner of war camp in Georgia. With his capture, Cuddy’s letters stopped. Although John Taylor Cuddy never made it home to Pennsylvania (he died in a prison in Florence, South Carolina on September 29, 1864), his correspondence creates a living picture of the life of a teenage Pennsylvania soldier during the Civil War.

Dickinson College, Civil War Era

By sailerd

On June 17, 2010

In Civil War (1861-1865)

See Slideshow below
[showtime]

The Stevens & Smith Historic Site

By sailerd

On June 17, 2010

In Antebellum (1840-1861)

Thaddeus Stevens, one of the most powerful and controversial congressmen of the nineteenth century is the central figure of a large restoration project conducted by the Historic Preservation Trust of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Stevens was an adamant opponent of slavery and helped runaway slaves escape, even going so far as to employ spies to watch for slave-catchers. He was also a leading attorney in several fugitive slave cases, most notably the Christiana Treason Trial (1851). Stevens also shared his home with Lydia Hamilton Smith, a mixed race woman who managed his household affairs and also proved to be an enormously successful businesswoman herself.

The Stevens & Smith Historic site is a $20 million educational and interpretive complex, integrating the restored 19^th century properties of Stevens and Smith located in historic downtown Lancaster, Pennsylvania featuring an original cistern discovered in 2003 believed by historians and archeologists to have been used by Stevens and Smith as a hiding place for escaping slaves along the Underground Railroad. A cistern is an underground storage tank used for holding water.

The planning for the Stevens & Smith Historic site overcame several obstacles before its approval, specifically the original plans for a new downtown convention center in Lancaster, Pennsylvania calling for the demolition of the historic sites previously owned and managed by Stevens and Smith. The Historic Preservation Trust of Lancaster County possessed protective easements on the properties and were successful in developing a strategy for the preservation of Stevens’ Lancaster city law office and residence from the antebellum period within the new Lancaster County Convention Center.

For more information check out the Stevens & Smith Historic Site online for a full overview and updates on the project. The site also features a video on the story of Stevens & Smith and images of the proposed historical site. Fergus Bordewich’s article, “Thaddeus Stevens and James Buchanan – How Their Historic Rivalry Shaped America” is a great source for historical background on Stevens’ and Smith’s contributions and connections to the abolitionist movement in Lancaster. Further information can be found on the Thaddeus Stevens Society website including an overview of the archeological dig of the cistern conducted outside Stevens’ residence and law office. The address for the site is located at 45-47 South Queen Street Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Huntington Friends Meeting House and William and Phebe Wright

By oczkowsl

On June 17, 2010

In Antebellum (1840-1861)

Huntington Friends Meeting was established in 1746 by the Quakers. The Quakers hired free African Americans to aid the “freedom seekers” or escaping African Americans. Many Huntington Quakers worked to oppose slavery using their connections with African Americans and other Quakers, including William Wright and Phebe Wright. From 1820 until 1840, the Wrights lived two miles north of Yellow Hill in York Springs, another refuge for freedom seekers. According to Hallowed Grounds, William and Phebe Wright were buried adjacent to the meeting house as well as their son William Wierman Wright. Their son used his advanced engineering skills to repair railways and bridges to mark Sherman’s march through the South. He later served as Sherman’s Chief Engineer and this allowed Wright to be well-known in the field of engineering.

The fugitives seeking safety at the Wright’s home in York Springs were taught to read and write and employed. One of these fugitives was James Pembroke, also known as James W. C. Pennington, who gives firsthand accounts of his time with the Wrights in The Fugitive Blacksmith or, Events in the History of James W. C. Pennington, Pastor of a Presbyterian Church, New York, Formerly a Slave in the State of Maryland, United States. Another dependable account is by William Still, a prominent abolitionist in Philadelphia. His book, The Underground Railroad, describes William and Phebe Wright as one of the leading abolitionists of Central Pennsylvania. Still describes the good works of Wright:

He was an “active member of the old Pennsylvania Abolition Society, and at the time of the emancipation of the slaves in this state was often engaged in lawsuits with slave-holders to compel them to release their bondmen, according to the requirements of the law. William Wright grew up under the influence of the teachings of these relatives. Joined to this, his location caused him to take an extraordinary interest in Underground Rail Road affairs.”

“The Wright Family” in Immigration of the Irish Quakers into Pennsylvania 1682-1750 with Their Early History in Ireland, shows the history of the Wright Family. Reconstructing the Past: Puzzle of the Lost Community at Yellow Hill by Debra McCauslin is an excellent source that discusses the major places in Pennsylvania that were stops in the Underground Railroad.

Today you can visit the Huntington Burial Ground and the operating Quaker meetinghouse. It is located at 300 Quaker Church Rd, York Springs, PA 17372. For directions see Google Maps.