Category: Articles

Central Square, Carlisle, PA (1860)

Lenore E. Flower, Women in the War Effort (Carlisle, PA: Hamilton Library Association, 1963).

Lenore E. Flower’s essay discuses the letters that two sisters wrote after Confederates shelled Carlisle on July 1, 1863. “We never dreamed that by evening the Rebel demons would attempt to shell the town, and that too without giving the usual warning,” as seventeen year old Margaret Murray noted in a letter to her brother. In addition, Flower includes a letter that Sara A. Myers wrote to Union General William Farrah Smith’s wife. “I am indebted to the exertions of Gen. Smith and his brave soldiers – I wish I could something for each of them – that I still have a home,” as Myers explained.

This essay has been posted online with permission from the Cumberland County Historical Society.

Central Square in1860 - Carlisle, PA

William E. Miller, Civil War Times In Carlisle (Carlisle, PA: Hamilton Library Association, 1931).

Merkel Landis provides an overview of what happened in Carlisle, Pennsylvania during the Civil War. After a review of the political conditions in Carlisle in 1860, Landis describes key events that took place in the town during the Civil War. Landis starts in November 1860 with the election returns and ends with the celebration in Carlisle after General Robert E. Lee surrendered. The essay also includes a number of photographs of people and places in Carlisle during this period.

This essay has been posted online with permission from the Cumberland County Historical Society.

G. A. R. Parade - Washington DC, 1892

Jacob M. Goodyear, The GAR Posts of Cumberland County (Carlisle, PA: Hamilton Library Association, 1951).

After the Civil War, many Union veterans joined the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) and established posts in their communities. Seven posts were set up in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania between 1880 and 1890 and Jacob M. Goodyear provides a short history for each one. Each post, as Goodyear explains, had “its own life story.”

This essay has been posted online with permission from the Cumberland County Historical Society.

Captain William E. Miller

Captain Miller’s Medal of Honor (1963)

Merrill F. Hummel’s essay discusses Captain William E. Miller’s Medal of Honor, which he received as a result of his actions during the Battle of Gettysburg on July 3, 1863. Miller lived in Carlisle on North Hanover Street and served in the Third Pennsylvania Calvary during the Civil War. Hummel includes Miller’s account of his actions during the battle, which are from a letter he wrote to his brother on July 7, 1863. Miller received his Medal of Honor on July 21, 1897. After the war, Miller returned to Carlisle and helped establish the Captain Colwell Post No. 201 of the Grand Army of the Republic. He also joined the Historical Association of Cumberland County and wrote an article in 1902 about the Confederates in Carlisle during the Civil War, which is available on Library Divided.

This essay has been posted online with permission from the Cumberland County Historical Society.