Pennsylvania in the Civil War

Robert M. Sandow, "Deserter Country: Civil War Opposition in the Pennsylvania Appalachians" (New York: Fordham University Press, 2009).

2012-01-23T00:07:00.000-08:00

I recently obtained a copy of Robert Sandow's "Deserter Country." This is a wonderful addition to my growing library on Pennsylvania "copperheadism" during the Civil War. Sandow concentrates on homefront opposition in the lumbering region of north and north-central Pennsylvania. Fantastic bibliography and a great "Introduction" outlining the state of scholarly research on this topic from the Civil War era to date. Excellent chapters on the history of the lumber industry in Pennsylvania in the 19th century, and I like the way Sandow relates war resistance in the lumbering regions to the pre-war changes in the industry in Pennsylvania and the "patterans of protest" evident in the 1850s in the "Raftsmen's Rebellion" of 1857. A lot of great material on Federal occupation of Clearfield County and the "expedition" against draft resistors and deserters in Fishing Creek Township in Columbia County. Apendix contains graphs and material demonstrating the resistance to volunteering for military service in the lumbering counties. Particularly interesting map of Pennsylvania showing geographical origins of the Pennsylvania Reserve Corps. Also information on the "Democratic Castle" movement in Clearfield County is worth perusing. This book is being added to the reading list!

Dan Sickles at Gettysburg

2011-07-03T11:09:00.000-07:00

I have been reading a book on northern generals by Wilmer Jones ("Generals in Blue and Gray: Lincoln's Generals," Vol. I, Stackpole Books, 2004). In the chapter on Dan Sickles, Jones talks about two things I found particularly interesting. First, after the war, Sickles was instrumental in the creation of the Gettysburg National Park. One observer noted that there were no monuments for Sickles in the Park, and Sickles replied, "Hell, the whole damn battlefield is my monument." Second, Jones notes that Sickles always believed his actions at the Peach Orchard, etc., saved the Union from defeat by blunting Longstreet's attack on the second day. Moreover, after the war, Longstreet sent Sickles a letter, published in several newspapers, crediting Sickles with slowing his attack on July 2, 1863, allowing Northern troops time to occupy Little Round Top.

Regimental Flag of the 8th Pennsylvania Reserves

2010-08-06T22:06:00.000-07:00

A picture of the regimental flag of the 8th Pennsylvania Reserve Infantry. For more information on the 8th Pennsylvania Reserves, see some of the earlier posts.

2010-01-30T21:43:00.000-08:00

The Bloody 85th: The Letters of Milton McJunkin, a Western Pennsylvania Soldier in the Civil War, compiled and edited by Ronn Palm, Dr. Richard Sauers, and Patrick A. Schroeder. Schroeder Publications: Lynchburg, VA, 2002 (201pp.)

This is an outstanding collection of letters by a member of Company D of the 85th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. A 24-year-old farmer from Pike Run Township near Bentleyville in Washington County, Pennsylvania, McJunkin was a prolific letter writer and astute observer of the incidents and events that encompassed his service as a soldier in the 85th Pennsylvania. The regiment was recruited in 1861 from volunteers coming from Washington, Fayette, Greene, and Somerset counties in southwestern Pennsylvania. McJunkin's letters are unique in Civil War literature in that the 85th Pennsylvania served in both the Army of the Potomac and the Army of the James. In McJunkin's correspondence we are given a picture of life in the Union army during the Peninsular Campaign in Virginia, but also a personal story of the regiment's campaigns in North Carolina and South Carolina. His experiences included serving in the same brigade on Morris Island in South Carolina as the famed 54th Massachusetts Infantry, a Black volunteer unit. In addition to McJunkin's letters, the book contains over sixty illustrations of officers and soldiers in the 85th. Many of these illustrations are accompanied by thumbnail sketches of the service records of these men. There is also a short history of the regiment's battleflags, including information about a court battle after the war to determine ownership of the remnants of the 85th's surviving colors. All in all, the book is a great addition to the regimental history
It should be noted that a history of the 85th Pennsylvania was originally published by regimental historian Luther S. Dickey in 1915 (History of the Eighty-fifth Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry 1861-1865: Comprising an Authentic Narrative of Casey's Division at the Battle of Seven Pines).

Regimental History of the 8th Pennsylvania Reserve Infantry

2008-07-06T12:16:00.000-07:00

Silas Baily, Colonel and later Brigadier General,
Commander of the 8th Pennsylvania Reserves

Robert E. Eberly, Jr. Bouquets from the Cannon’s Mouth: Soldiering with the Eighth Regiment of the Pennsylvania Reserves. White Mane Books: Shippensburg, PA, 2005, 372 pp. (ISBN 1-57249-373-9)

The 8th Pennsylvania Reserve Infantry was one of the regiments attached to the Pennsylvania Reserves Division, commanded at the Battle of Fredericksburg by Major General George Gordon Meade, which served as part of the Army of the Potomac. From the Seven Days Battles in 1862 through Grant’s Overland Campaign in 1864, the 8th Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Reserves Division fought in nearly every major campaign in the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War. The regiment, along with the division, suffered heavy losses at Gaines Mill, Antietam, and Fredericksburg, where the Pennsylvania Reserves achieved one of the only Union successes by establishing a breach in a portion of the Confederate right flank. The reserves were unsupported in this effort, however, and the division was driven back with severe losses, including the capture of William Silveus, whose letters home to his wife, Mary, are included in an earlier post. The author of this book, drawing on letters, diaries, and other personal accounts, does a very creditable job of bringing the history of this regiment to life. Composed of infantry companies recruited in western Pennsylvania, the battle record of the 8th Pennsylvania Reserve Infantry has received little scholarly attention in the past. Focusing on the letters and diaries of five western Pennsylvanians who served with the 8th Pennsylvania Reserves, Eberly has done much to rectify this matter. Of particular interest are the two prisoner of war diaries incorporated by Eberly in the third part of the book. These two accounts of life in rebel prisons have never been published before. Containing ten maps, six appendices, several photographs, extensive notes, and a complete bibliography, this is a wonderful scholarly work. Eberly sheds a great deal of light on the service of the Pennsylvania Reserves, and this book, as Civil War historian Edwin C. Bearss states in his foreword, is for those “who savor the soldier’s story.”

Pennsylvania Germans at Gettysburg

2008-04-29T05:31:00.000-07:00

David L. Valuska and Christian B. Keller. Damn Dutch: Pennsylvania Germans at Gettysburg (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2004), 236 pp.

This book is a first-rate look at the contribution made by Pennsylvania-German regiments to the Union effort at Gettysburg. Keller writes a fascinating chapter dissecting the differences between the Pennsylvania Dutch (German immigrants who came to Pennsylvania in the 18th century and their descendants) and German-American immigrants who came to this country after 1820, and especially after the failed 1848 revolutions in Europe. Fully documented with several illustrations of Pennsylvania German soldiers, this is a good place to start to get an understanding of the Pennsylvania German contribution to Pennsylvania's war effort.

8th Pennsylvania Reserve Infantry Letters

2008-04-28T02:43:00.000-07:00

Image of 8th Pennsylvania Reserve Infantry Monument at Antietam

[William Silveus enlisted as a private in Company I, 8th Pennsylvania Reserve Infantry on August 25, 1862. Captured at the Battle of Fredericksburg on December 13, 1862, Silveus was confined in a prison in Richmond on December 17, 1862 until he was paroled at City Point, Virginia, on January 9, 1863. He reported to Camp Parole, Maryland, on January 11, 1863 and died of typhoid fever at the military hospital on the steamboat "New York" on January 12, 1863. The following letters are addressed to his wife, Mary, and his brother, Joseph Silveus. Albert is his brother-in-law, Albert Mildred, who enlisted on June 20, 1861. Basic information about the 8th Pennsylvania Reserves can be found in The History of Pennsylvania Volunteersby Samuel P. Bates. A recent book on the 8th Pennsylvania Reserves is Bouquets from the Cannon's Mouth: Soldiering with the Eighth Regiment of the Pennsylvania Reservesby Robert E. Eberly, Jr.and published by White Mane Books in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, in 2005]

"September 5th AD 1862

Dear Mary,

I am now in Pittsburg put up at an old dutch inn where I am treated like an own son. We expect to stay here until next Monday as we can’t get transportation until then. I will now tell you a little of our journey. We arrived at Newtown [now Kirby, PA] the same evening that we left home and were addressed by Mr. Wise and Mr. Clophus and [illegible] Fordyce and Mr. Oliphant and then paraded the streets awhile and then we went to supper at the widow Monroe’s stand where we put up for the night. She enquired all about you and the rest. Sarah Moores is a coming to see you in about two weeks, but I must return to my journey. The next morning we had prayer by the rev. Mr. Baird and then we got in wagons and got to the river [the Monongahela] again not ex a block where we took dinner and then we took the boat and arrived here this morning where we are all in good spirits.

Now Mary I will close for this time as I have nothing more to write at this time. Keep in good spirits for I heard today that the 8th regiment will be placed to guard the City and some thinks that we will have to pass the examination before we leave here.

No more at present. May God bless you.

W. Silveus

Sep. 19th AD 1862

Dear Mary,

I would like to tell you all that I have seen since we left the City, but tongue cannot tell, but I will try and tell you some things. We left the City last Saturday and marched every day about 10 miles and camped out wherever we could catch it and whatever we wanted to eat we took. Last Sunday night one of our squad shot a pig and made a roast of it, although I didn’t eat any of it. I won’t eat anything that is stolen. Last Tuesday night, Albert Chaplin and Rine Fordyce and myself stayed with an old sesech. He give us our supper and breakfast. Yesterday we met 800 rebel prisoners. They drove them like a lot of sheep. Today we crossed two battlefields and I tell you that it was a hard sight. We also stopped at a hospital and that was the hardest sight I ever saw. Some had their legs off and some their arms and some their hands and one rebel had both legs off above the knee. If you was here you could see as high as 100 or 200 ambulances all in one train a hauling the wounded the hospital. We have not got to the regiment yet. They are about 10 miles off yet. We expect to get to them tomorrow. There is a great fight a going on now. They think they have Jackson surrounded. One of the rebel lieutenants told us that Jackson and Lee was killed at which we gave three loud cheers. I have saw nothing but soldiers since I left the City. They are strung all along the sod road. We are encamped in a fine orchard. We will have a good supper tonight. We drawed some rations today.

I have 25 dollars that I will send home as soon as I get to the regiment. I will have to get an order from the Captain to have the County bounty. As soon as I get it I will send it home and then you can draw it out of the County treasure. Well I will close for this time. This leaves us all well hoping you may be enjoying the same blessing. Tell Jo I will write to him as soon as I get to the regiment. Give my love to Mother and all the rest.

Pray for me.
Wm. Silveus

Write soon and direct the same as you would to Albert.

Sep. 20th AD 1862

Dear Mary,

We are now with the regiment on the banks of the Potomac. The first two men that met me was Albert and Meny and you had better believe that they were glad to see me. They are both well and hardy. They were both in two battles this week and both escaped unharmed. I went over the battlefield this morning and O what a sight it was. I saw as high as 13 rebels all in one pile and they are scattered for two or three miles any amount of them. I never want to witness another such a sight. They are fighting now some distant from here.

I cannot tell whether we will be called or not but if we are I am going to try and do my duty and if I fall I feel that I am prepared to go. I am now setting by the side of Albert a writing this letter to you while he is writing to Mother. I will now close and write to Jo. So no more at this time but my best to you and mother.

May God bless you all.

Wm Silveus

Dear Brother,

I begin to know what it is to be a soldier although I like it far better than I expected to. Although we saw some hard times since we left home we had to bare our own experiences. Since we left the city which I had to spend three dollars I have 25 dollars that I want to send home as soon as I can. My County bounty I can’t get until I get an order from our Captain and when I get it I will send it to you and then you can draw it out of the County treasure for me and I will reward you for it.

Dear Brother I want you to remember me in your prayers for I am now in a place where it takes all that one knows to keep him in the right track. There are all kinds of people here and everything to lead him away. I mean to do what is right as near as I can and let others do as they may. We encamped in a battlefield last night and it was the awfullest sight that I ever saw and God forbid that I ever should see another such sight. Well Jo I will now close for this time and I will try and write more the next time as I am pretty much tired out. So farewell.

Wm Silveus

[Undated]

Dear Mary,

Once more I will write to you but it is going to be the last time until I get one from you. I do think a little hard of you that you don’t write to me. I have not got but one little sheet of you yet you don’t know how I feel when the mail comes in and all the other boys get to hear from home and I have to stand back and look on. Now Mary do write if it ain’t more than two lines. We have had some very hard marching of late. I stood it tolerable well. I am not so very well at this time but hope I may be well ere this reaches you and hope you may be well. Tell Mother and Joe that I want them to write.

So no more at this time but my love to you.

Wm Silveus"

Greene County (continued)

2008-03-21T06:31:00.000-07:00

PART V: “To Intimidate the Disaffected”

Although it has become fashionable for revisionist historians to attack Abraham Lincoln on the basis of his policies regarding martial law, enforcement of the draft law, and suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, the fact remains that he and his advisors maintained enough faith in American democracy to allow the existence of a “loyal opposition” in the North and to permit the election process to continue even in the darkest periods of the war. For all the talk by Democrats in the North of “American Bastilles,” a name given to military prisons holding civilians arrested by the military on one charge or another, the North did not experience the slaughter of political opponents that other republics have experienced during similar crises. Since Pennsylvania was a key state in national and presidential politics, it is understandable that the Republicans paid close attention to anti-war movements there and the actions and words of the Democratic leaders throughout the Commonwealth.
The race for governor in Pennsylvania in 1863 was extremely important to Lincoln. Republican Governor Andrew J. Curtin had proven to be a strong supporter of the war effort. His opponent, Peace Democrat George W. Woodward was a Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice who supported the preliminary injunction against enforcement of the draft law in Pennsylvania issued in the case of Kneedler v. Lane. The election could therefore be viewed as a referendum on the Republican Party’s execution of the war. If Curtin lost his bid for reelection in 1863, there was a chance that Lincoln would lose the state and reelection as President in 1864. In analyzing Pennsylvania politics for President Lincoln in a letter dated June 17, 1863, Senator Edgar Cowan informed Lincoln that the voters of Pennsylvania “constitute but two great parties, Democratic and Whig, just as they did 20 years ago—and the nature of men out of which these parties grew remains the same.” He remarked that half of the people, representing the Democratic Party, “are bitterly opposed . . . nay they hate and abhor . . . abolitionists.” Of the Republicans in Pennsylvania, he estimated that nine-tenths were opposed to the radical policies of the abolitionist wing of the party. Yet, Senator Cowan warned Lincoln “many now believe that the War is now really waged for the sake of Abolitionism and not to restore the Union.” As the gubernatorial election approached in Pennsylvania, Andrew Curtin informed Lincoln on September 4, 1863, if the election were held that day “the result would be extremely doubtful.” “In the cities and towns,” Curtin continued, “the changes are all in our favor, but in the country, removed from the centers of intelligence, the Democratic leaders have succeeded in creating prejudice and passion, and have infused their poison into the minds of the people to a very large extent, and the changes are against us.” Despite his pessimism in September, Curtin won reelection as governor of Pennsylvania when the general election was held in October. In Greene County, however, Curtin was defeated by a margin greater than two to one.
Lincoln won Pennsylvania in the presidential election in 1864, although Greene County was one of twelve Pennsylvania counties that voted against him. The Congressional election that year, however, contained some interesting developments. Congressman Lazear was running for reelection in the 24th District, including Greene County. He was opposed by a Republican from Washington County, George V. Lawrence. State Republican leaders seemed confident that the election would go their way. On September 27, 1864, Simon Cameron wrote to President Lincoln from Pittsburgh that all “is right in every district except the one” containing Westmoreland County where Senator Edgar Cowan lived. The Waynesburg Messenger, however, in an article published on October 12, 1864, after Lazear was defeated for Congress by Lawrence, howled that the “military was posted in several of the upper townships.” Smelling a conspiracy by local Republican leaders, the editor noted that he had “the very best authority” for saying that Secretary of War Stanton issued an order directing that a regiment of soldiers be sent into Greene County to be present for the election. Noting that the order was given for the purpose of “INTIMIDATING THE DISAFFECTED,” he was convinced the troops were present for the sole purpose of helping the Republicans defeat Lazear for Congress.
Refusing to reveal its source, the Messenger reported “. . . we know one Lincoln office holder who exultantly expressed the belief to the other precious scamps . . . that this movement `would reduce the majority in Greene County for Gen. Lazear, to twelve hundred.’” Despite the fact that the county gave Lazear a majority of about 1600, the Democratic newspaper was certain that “judging from Richhill [Township], Lazear’s majority may, by this foul means, be reduced below that of the Governor’s election.”
The exact source of the Messenger’s information regarding such an order for troops to be present for the election in Greene County is difficult to trace. According to the Official Records of the War of the Rebellion, Series I, Volume 43 (Part II), page 523, the commander of the Department of the Susquehanna, including western Pennsylvania, issued a special order on November 1, 1864. In these instructions to the district’s provost marshalls, it was directed that in “view of the approaching election, deserters from the army and the draft may return to their homes, and every effort must be made to arrest and hold them to the service they owe their Government.” It is possible that a similar order was issued prior to the congressional elections in October.

AFTERWORD

There is still a great deal of research to be done before a complete picture of anti-war sentiment in Greene County during the Civil War period can be drawn. This series of articles has done little more than sketch an outline. For some reason, the county historians in the nineteenth century chose to ignore these episodes and to concentrate on the county’s military history. It may be that events were too recent and internecine wounds in the county had not healed enough for these episodes in the region’s history to be looked at dispassionately. Once the war was over, the residents of the county concentrated their efforts in ventures like oil, gas, western cattle, and sheep. Bates, Evans, Hanna, and Waycoff may have decided not to dwell on the unpleasantness of the recent past. For modern historians and genealogists interested in the problem, sources are difficult to find. Only a handful of newspapers have survived in the microfilm collections. Letters and diaries are still locked away in the county's attics and basements. It is possible we may now never know more than a bare minimum of the story. Arnold Shank noted that after the war, many Peace Democrats simply destroyed their personal papers. Yet there are many untapped resources. It was common for local political leaders to report conditions to state and national party leaders. It may be that a search of relevant manuscript collections will shed more light. In addition, a thorough search needs to be made in the provost marshall records at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. Other resources may eventually come to be recognized. Whatever future research discloses, it is imperative that more work is done.
After the war, it seems that the citizens of Greene County did the best they could to forget. Reuben Brown continued farming in Perry Township. W. G. W. Day after purchasing the Waynesburg Republican became a promoter of the Waynesburg and Washington Railroad. L. K. Evans, before taking off for the Midwest, busied himself researching and writing his pioneer histories of the county. After losing the congressional election in 1864, Jesse Lazear retired to his Maryland farm, returning to Richhill Township to be buried after he died. Dr. Alexander Patton returned from Harrisburg after serving one term in the legislature later returning to serve in the state Senate. The oil in Dunkard Township eventually dried up. Davistown became a picturesque little village nestled in the hills. In Morris Township, the Fonner girl married, and the old sheep shed, the scene of her hopes and fears, fell into decay, rotting away and leaving nothing but the ghosts of a family legend to inspire historical curiousity in a later generation.

Greene County (continued)

2008-03-21T06:15:00.000-07:00

PART IV: A Murder in Perry Township

Samuel McCann was a Greene County resident serving with the 7th (West) Virginia Infantry who had returned home to look for deserters. At a bar in Mapletown on Friday, March 14, 1864, McCann attempted to arrest two deserters from the 7th (West) Virginia, James Songston and Otho Herrington. The two men had been missing from the regiment for about a year, and in an article describing the incident in the Waynesburg Messenger on March 23, 1864, it was reported that the two had recently returned to Greene County from Ohio where they had enlisted and received bounties. By 1864, this was a common practice for deserters from the army known as “bounty jumping.” When McCann found Songston and Herrington in the Mapletown barroom, he immediately accosted them and reached for Songston. Herrington and Songston both drew revolvers, Songston’s pistol misfiring just as McCann seized him. Herrington fired his gun at McCann from behind. The bullet passed through the side of McCann’s head and came out the corner of one of his eyes. McCann immediately pitched forward into Songston’s arms, who then threw him to the floor causing McCann to break his shoulder blade. Songston and Herrington then escaped before any further attempt could be made to arrest them. The Messenger reported that McCann was expected to recover from his wounds.
Thus, by 1864, Greene County began to experience some of the violence that gripped the whole country because of the war. Professor A. J. Waycoff in his history of Greene County only relates a single episode of Union soldiers operating in Greene County, describing an incident when Federal troops camped on the Courthouse lawn and then marched to Mount Morris to break up a band known as the Knights of the Golden Circle. Exactly what Professor Waychoff was describing is hard to say. He may have been thinking of some strange combination of the events in Davistown with Captain Showalter and Captain Cuthbertson. It is also possible he was describing a different event altogether. One thing is certain, much more was going on at home during the Civil War in Greene County than the nineteenth century county historians revealed. Oil was discovered on Dunkard Creek in 1861, and by 1863, Dunkard Township was in the midst of Greene County’s first oil boom. Farming was the lifeblood of the county. By 1850, over half the land in the county had been improved for farming. There were more than twice as many sheep in Greene County (55,000) as there were people (22,136) in the years prior to the war. Furthermore, in an article in The Waynesburg Messenger on December 11, 1861, along with politics and news of the war, the editor included an article of interest to a vast number of the county’s farmers on “Destruction of sheep by dogs.”
On November 20, 1864, a woman from Richhill Township, identified only by the initials M. L. R. wrote a letter to “Cousin Neddy.” From her point of view, despite the tragedy of the war, farmers in Greene County were doing well. She wrote:
“. . . everything appears to be plenty, and demands a high price, cattle is worth Seven cts in the rough (fat cattle) hogs, 10 to 12, do. Sheep Six dollars per head, and upwards, Chickens 50 [cents] per pair, and everything in proportion, yet there appears to be plenty of everything, and that is good, I suppose one reason of the high prices of everything is money being so plenty, everybody is into Some kind of speculation, Some in oil, some in western cattle and hogs, Some one thing and some another . . ..”

She also told Cousin Neddy that “Joe” had purchased some cattle and hogs “out West this fall.” She hoped that the venture would turn out well and that Joe would “make considerable on them, enough to hire him a Substitute, for I expect there will be another big draft this winter, or next spring.” “Their [sic] is some Soldiers here at Waynesburgh,” she wrote, “They are part of an Invalid Corps, they are taking deserters, etc etc . . . .”
Among the deserters being sought by the Federal authorities in early November 1864 was a young man from Perry Township named Thomas Phillips. Phillips, who was about thirty years old at the time, was the son of Peter Phillips, a Perry Township farmer who according to the 1860 census owned property worth about $300. Having been drafted into the military in the fall of 1864, the younger Phillips failed to report and made it well known in the community that he was not going to report. On Sunday evening, November 6, 1864, Phillips was attending a party in Perry Township when he was informed that Federal authorities were on their way to arrest him. He immediately left the party, declaring his intention to shoot anyone who tried to arrest him. Apparently deciding to ambush his pursuers, Phillips concealed himself along the road. Not long after that, William Brown, a son of Reuben Brown, Jr., a prominent farmer in Perry Township, and T. S. Morris, a son of Mount Morris merchant E. F. Morris, came along the road on their way home from a wedding. When they approached the place where Phillips was hiding, he fired at them three times, missing Morris but hitting William Brown with the second shot in the left temple.
Two days later, on November 8, 1864, E. F. Morris appeared before Perry Township Justice of the Peace A. F. Ammons and swore out an affidavit for Thomas Phillips’ arrest on the charge of assault with intent to kill T. S. Morris and William Brown, Brown having so far survived his wound. The township constable, Brice Howard, arrested Phillips, who was then released on bail set at $3000. At that time a Charles Coss and William Phillips put up the money for bail.
Within a few days, William Brown died of his wound, and his father, Reuben Brown, Jr., appeared before Justice of the Peace Joseph Connor in Mount Morris to swear an affidavit for an arrest warrant for Thomas Phillips for murder. Justice Conner issued a warrant, and Constable Brice Howard again took Phillips into custody, committing him to the county jail in Waynesburg on November 12, 1864. The Washington Reporter and Tribune noted in an article published November 16, 1864, that Phillips may have shot Brown “perhaps thinking” he and Morris “were the parties in pursuit of him.” At any rate, tempers in Perry Township were running high. It was reported that threats had been made to lynch Phillips before he was arrested and jailed.
The case of Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Thomas Phillips was filed in the Court of Quarter Sessions of Greene County at number 7 December Sessions 1864. The county district attorney, J. G. Ritchie, sought an indictment for “murder felony” from the Grand Jury. The Grand Jury listened to testimony from several witnesses, including Thaddeus S. Morris, Dr. Spencer Morris, Dr. L. W. Ross, Washington Fox, Phillip Heite, Mary Phillips, Charles Coss, John Coss, Brice Howard, Minor Long, Cisey Rose, Ellsworth Russell, and John McClure. After due deliberation under their foreman, W. S. Ritchie, the Greene County Grand Jury returned a verdict of “ignoramus” in the case filed against Thomas Phillips. A Latin term literally meaning, “We do not know,” the verdict of “ignoramus” was a decision by the Grand Jury rejecting the indictment. In essence, the jury decided that even if the facts in the bill of indictment drawn by the district attorney were true, Phillips’ conduct did not warrent criminal punishment.
As frustrating as the verdict must have been for the Reuben Brown family, it is just as puzzling for anyone looking at the case in hindsight. The only documents available in the Greene County Clerk of Court’s Office are the entries in the Quarter Sessions docket, the affidavits for the arrest warrants, the warrants themselves, a transcript from Justice of the Peace Ammons docket, and the indictment. There is no transcript of testimony, so it is hard to analyze what happened. The surviving records seem clear that Thomas Phillips did shoot William Brown that night on November 6, 1864. Indeed, the Brown family was convinced of it because in Greene County historian Samuel Bates’ biographical sketch of Reuben Brown, Jr., he states that Reuben’s son William was killed by accident by a deserter during the Civil War. Calling the incident an “accident” may be the key to understanding the verdict. It is possible that the jury looked at the case as a tragedy for both the Brown and the Phillips families. William Brown had been killed by mistake. Thomas Phillips, because of a military draft law passed by a distant government in Washington, D.C., had felt it necessary to defend himself from what several citizens of the county no doubt felt would be an illegal arrest for violating an unconstitutional law.
If this analysis is close to the truth, then the jury may simply have decided to deal with Brown’s death by leaving the parties in the position they occupied by virtue of the tragedy of the times. Recognizing that the killing was really only an accident, the jury simply could not bring itself to find enough evidence to indict Thomas Phillips for an intentional killing. Violence had come to Greene County not in the form of soldiers firing on civilians. More tragically, violence came to the community at the hands of neighbor firing on neighbor.

Anti-war Sentiment in Greene County (continued)

2008-03-21T06:04:00.000-07:00

PART III: ". . . Dunkard Township, the hotbed
of copperheadism . . ."

The national military conscription act or draft law passed by Congress on March 3, 1863, was one Republican war measure that met with widespread opposition throughout the North. The law provided that every male citizen of the United States and any foreign born male who had indicated an intent to seek citizenship between the ages of twenty and forty-five was to be enrolled for a draft into military service. A man could avoid being drafted by hiring a substitute to take his place in the army or by paying the government $300 in lieu of a substitute. For those in the North who felt the war should be fought by volunteers, the law was seen as both unconstitutional and a positive infringement upon their freedom. Many Peace Democrats pointed to the provisions regarding the hiring as a substitute as proof that this was "a rich man's war" and "a poor man's fight."
In the heat of July that year, the military draft sparked riots in Boston, Philadelphia, and New York. In New York, the city mob became so violent that Union troops fresh from the battlefield of Gettysburg were sent to quell the disturbance. Peace Democrats setting as judges in Pennsylvania challenged the draft law at every opportunity. Judge Henry G. Long of Lancaster County on May 4, 1863, issued a ruling on an application for a writ of habeas corpus by a drafted man named John Shank that since there was no evidence of record that Shank had actually been mustered into service, he could not be arrested as a deserter from the army and was to be discharged from custody. In Schuylkill County, the Court issued bench warrants for the arrest of army personnel who attempted to arrest a drafted man in his home and fired warning shots at him as he fled. The army's provost marshall for the county, C. Tower, noted that "the presiding judge and the two associates of this court all rabidly oppose the war." It was said that the presiding judge "sorrowed publicly over the death of Stonewall Jackson." The Pennsylvania Supreme Court in the case of Kneedler v. Lane (published in volume 45 of The Pennsylvania Reports on page 238), issued a preliminary injunction in the fall of 1863, declaring the draft law unconstitutional and directing the army to release any Pennsylvanian in service under its provisions. The preliminary injunction was later dissolved upon a full hearing, but the matter demonstrates the audacity of Peace Democrats like Pennsylvania Justice George W. Woodward when it came to opposition to the conscription act.
Violence against the persons or property of enrollment officers became a common form of resistance to the draft law in some rural counties of Pennsylvania. In a report to the Provost-Marshall-General of the Army, James B. Fry, dated December 12, 1864, Major Richard I. Dodge, acting provost-marshall-general for the Western Division of Pennsylvania commented on the difficulties encountered by the army in trying to enforce the draft law in his region. Headquartered in Harrisburg, Major Dodge called western Pennsylvania "a vast wilderness" with "scarcely any roads." He believed that in the rural areas, the inhabitants were "ignorant and easily imposed upon by designing politicians." As to the great oil region of Pennsylvania, Major Dodge found it "wonderful in its growth and migratory as to its population." Coal miners in western Pennsylvania he thought were "the very worst class of beings, both native and foreign, to be found in this country."
As enrollment for the draft started in Bedford County in June of 1863, Henry Ickes, the enrollment officer in Saint Clair Township, was threatened with "powder and lead." Within a day, his sawmill was burned, causing him $600 in damages. The enrollment officer in Napier Township in the same county had his barn burned. As time went on, it was reported that armed bands of men were accumulating in the woods of Cambria, Center, and Clearfield counties. Reports in Columbia County in 1864 indicated that draft resisters and deserters from the army had accumulated arms and built a fort in Fishing Creek Township which resulted in a military expedition into the region, mass arrests, and the eventual crushing of the movement known as the Fishing Creek Confederacy.
Greene County was part of the twenty-fourth district of Pennsylvania when the first enrollment under the draft law was conducted in June 1863. The Provost Marshall assigned to this district was Captain John Cuthbertson, a combat veteran who had been shot through both thighs at the Battle of Fraser's Farm in Virginia during General McClellan's ill-fated Peninsular Campaign in June 1862. The enrollment officer for Greene County was William G. W. Day of Waynesburg, a prominent member of the county's Republican Party who after the war became owner and editor of The Waynesburg Republican. On June 2, 1863, in a letter to the Enrollment Board for the 24th District of Pennsylvania, Day reported that he was "sorry to inform you that the enrollment is not going on pleasantly in Greene County." Unable to find anyone willing to serve as enrollment officer for Dunkard Township, "the hotbed of copperheadism," Day had picked a man he described as very good, "shrewd, calm, and resolute, and a businessman withal" from another township to serve. This man, a Mr. Alexander, had finished his enrollment duties in one township without trouble, but when he traveled into Dunkard Township, he spent a whole day without obtaining one name. Toward evening he entered the general store in Davistown and was met by a large number of men. These men refused to give him any information, but instead they obtained a rope and threatened to hang him if he did not leave Dunkard Township in three minutes. Mr. Alexander thereupon immediately left the vicinity.
Day wrote that the citizens of Dunkard Township had raised a company to defy Alexander and "just blocked him up so he could not do anything." Day was certain that trouble was brewing in at least three other townships in Greene County. Apparently, the Dunkard Township men argued that there had been an earlier draft made by the state against the township that had never been enforced. It was believed that there were already seven men in the area who had successfully evaded the draft. "Something must be done soon," Day told the Enrollment Board, "or they will have the thing all in their own hands."
Upon receipt of Day's letter, the provost marshall's office in Pittsburgh acted immediately and decisively. Deputy provost marshall G. S. Baker reported to Washington, D.C. to the provost marshall general James Fry on June 6, 1863, that he feared "the trouble" in Dunkard Township was "of some magnitude." On June 5, 1863, Captain Cuthbertson acquired a detachment of twenty-three men from Captain Charles Churchill's Pittsburgh garrison. These men, commanded by a Captain Hays, proceeded to Greensborough with Captain Cuthbertson by steamboat on the Monongahela River. Cuthbertson then led the men by foot over the road from Greensborough to Davistown, taking Mr. Alexander with him. The provost officer tried to conceal his troops’ movements, but their slow progress through the hilly Greene County countryside allowed news of their approach to reach Davistown in time for the leaders of the draft resistance in the area to flee.
Mr. Alexander again set up to take the enrollment in Davistown. This time, however, his authority was backed by armed Federal troops under the command of an able officer. The first two men approached by Alexander refused to give their names or ages. Cuthbertson immediately placed them under arrest, and all resistance to the process dissolved, with Davistown residents coming forward voluntarily to give their names. Cuthbertson and his troops remained in Davistown that first night, hoping to catch some of the ringleaders of the resistance. The next day he proceeded to Waynesburg, bringing back a detachment on the following day to Davistown, arriving around midnight. Surrounding the houses of the known leaders of the resistance, Cuthbertson again made an attempt to arrest them. The men were not to be found, however, and Cuthbertson was informed that they had fled to Virginia. In the meantime, Cuthbertson rounded up five deserters in the area along with the two prisoners he had arrested the first day.
The two men arrested the first day for refusing to give their names or ages obtained writs of habeas corpus for their release. A hearing was held before Judge James Lindsey, the Common Pleas Court Judge in Waynesburg, on the validity of the writs. Lindsey found to Cuthbertson's satisfaction that refusal to give their names constituted obstruction of an officer performing his duty and the arrests were properly made. Before leaving Greene County, Cuthbertson made Judge Lindsey, James A. Buchanan, the county chairman of the Democratic Party, and other leading citizens of the county, regardless of political affiliation, execute oaths of loyalty to the United States. In his report filed June 12, 1863, Captain Cuthbertson remarked that "War Democrats informed me that the promptness with which a military force had been brought upon the ground of resistance had been attended with happiest results, and that no further trouble need be anticipated."
In the meantime, in Waynesburg, the two political parties sparred over the meaning of it all. Apparently L. K. Evans in an article entitled "Mob Law" in the Greene County Republican accused the Democratic newspapers of counseling "resistance to the laws." The Waynesburg Messenger, in an article on June 3, 1863, denied any such intent to advise its readers to resist the law. To the contrary, the Democratic paper accused the Republicans of attempting "to stifle Free Speech and muzzle a Free Press . . . ." Such attempts by the Republicans were seen as recognition "of their own shortcomings . . . and the indefeasible character of much of their policy and many of their acts."
No matter how events were dissected by the newspapers and politicians, however, one thing is clear about the events in Davistown in the late spring of 1863. This time, there were no reports of warm breakfasts served to wet and hungry soldiers. Captain Cuthbertson, in his report regarding the incident, made no mention of the hospitality of the residents of the village. Federal soldiers and civilians in Davistown this time met as clear adversaries. Captain Cuthbertson's guns had swayed events. Fortunately, the incident and arrests occurred without violence. Resistance to the draft law, however, was a powder keg that only needed the right spark to bring violence even into the sleepy communities of Greene County.

Anti-war Sentiment in Greene County, Pennsylvania

2008-03-21T05:46:00.000-07:00

PART II: “A Loyal Opposition”

As noted by Dr. G. Wayne Smith on page 15 of his Greene County history, “One constant in Greene County politics from the beginning was an affiliation with and unqualified support for the Democratic Party . . . .” The county voted Democratic in the 1860 Presidential election, and in 1864, Greene County was one of twelve counties in the state of Pennsylvania that voted against Lincoln’s reelection. As early as February 16, 1861, with the country drifting toward open hostilities between states of the lower South and the Federal government, Greene County Democrats held a meeting at the Courthouse in Waynesburg to pick delegates to send to Harrisburg for a convention calling for peace and supporting compromise with the South. Charles A. Black, Congressman Jesse Lazear, J. L. McConnell, and Dr. S. Morris were selected as delegates. In his diary that evening, James Lindsey, law partner of J.A.J. Buchanan, Chairman of the County Democratic Committee, wrote that he gave an hour-long speech supporting the resolution for a compromise with the seceding states. He stated that if Lincoln and the Republicans “stubbornly reject all compromises, and recklessly plunge the country into Civil War, they would have to do the fighting themselves.” His remarks were met with great applause by the assembly and to him “seemed to embody the unanimous sentiment of the meeting.”
As war erupted between the two sections of the country, North and South, and with hundreds of Greene County men flocking to join the colors of the Union, the Democratic leaders of the county remained steadfast in their opposition to many of the policies adopted by Lincoln and the Republican majority in Congress for prosecution of the war. To meet the crisis of Civil War, Lincoln suspended the use of the writ of habeas corpus, martial law was imposed even in some areas of the North on occasion when deemed necessary for the war effort, and military courts were used to try civilians charged with being in violation of military policies. As the war continued, Lincoln adopted a more radical policy by issuing the Emancipation Proclamation to take effect on January 1, 1863. The Republican controlled Congress enacted a most unpopular measure on March 3, 1863 when it passed a military conscription act that allowed a man drafted into military service to hire a “substitute” or pay $300 to be exempted from service. As war weariness grew in the North, this draft law led to increasing charges that the conflict was a “rich man’s war” but “a poor man’s fight.” Moreover, many Peace Democrats in the North saw the Emancipation Proclamation as unconstitutional and a stumbling block to any negotiated peace and reunion with the South.
In Congress, Jesse Lazear from Richhill Township, was a stubborn opponent to the Republicans. On July 9, 1861, Congressman Lazear voted against a resolution passed by the House which absolved Union soldiers of any duty to capture and return escaped slaves. Later that year, on December 10, 1861, Lazear supported a resolution, subsequently tabled by the House without action, stating that Congress alone had the right to suspend habeas corpus and that suspension of the writ by any other government department “is a usurpation and therefore dangerous to the liberty of the people.” On February 28, 1863, Lazear gave a speech before the House in which he defended his “pacific views”, at the same time protesting against being abused and called “disloyal” for holding such views. “I confess that I would prefer a peace,” he said, “rather than to have the people of the South exterminated . . .and to see their lands occupied by their discharged slaves, even if we were sure that they would raise no more cotton.” In addition, he argued “that the arrests of citizens by military or executive authority are unconstitutional, and that whoever commits such an act of outrage is liable to an action for damages in our courts, from which responsibility no government power can shield him.” For Lazear, martial law could “only exist where the will of the despot is supreme.” As for the Emancipation Proclamation, he dismissed it as a measure “pregnant with more evil than any single act done by one man.” As late in the war as May 31, 1864, Congressman Lazear introduced a resolution that the President suspend all hostilities and call for a convention of delegates from all the states, North and South, to meet for the purpose of working out a compromise to end the war and to restore the southern states to the Union.
Dr. Alexander Patton, Greene County’s representative in the Pennsylvania Assembly, introduced a resolution on February 5, 1863, stating the Federal government had no right to request that Pennsylvania provide men or material for its war effort until Lincoln rescinded the Emancipation Proclamation. Dr. Patton noted that “the present bloody and devastating civil war could, and should have been averted, by the adoption of the Crittenden compromise, or by some other measure alike just and honorable to all sections of the country.” Placing “the whole responsibility” for the war upon the “dominant party in Congress,” Dr. Patton, speaking for many Peace Democrats throughout the state, declared that the President’s act in freeing the slaves in the South was unconstitutional and unnecessarily changed the objective of the war from its original aim of preserving the Union. The resolution did not pass, but George Turner at Bloomsburg University believes that Dr. Patton’s resolution can be seen as a symptom of fear that the North would be inundated by freed Blacks from the South or that Lincoln and the Republicans were trying to impose racial equality between Blacks and Whites.
Support for his thesis can be found in a series of resolutions adopted by a Democratic Party meeting in Davistown in Dunkard Township held on Saturday, March 8, 1863. John Stephenson, who served as president, with Jacob Shriver and J. Bussey as vice-presidents, and E. Chalfant serving as secretary, chaired the meeting. The committee on resolutions consisted of Samuel Hayes, A. Jamison, and William Knotts. The resolutions proposed by them and passed by the delegates at the meeting included support for the efforts being made by Jesse Lazear in Congress, but added that the Democrats of Dunkard Township were “opposed to any and all of the unconstitutional schemes of Abolitionism to equalize the negro and white races, either by sword or by proclamation.”
Further, they resolved “that this government was made by white men and for white men, and that the negro has no part therein, as a citizen.” Calling for support of the “Constitution as our fathers made it, and for the Union as it was, “ the committee demanded that “this bloody war” be terminated “by fair, just and Constitutional compromises.”
The Waynesburg Messenger, a Democratic newspaper, summed up the view of most Greene County Democrats in an article published on July 16, 1862. Purporting to be a conversation heard in the street by the reporter, the unidentified parties spoke as follows:
“DEMOCRAT -- I am in favor of prosecuting the war to the utter putting down of the rebellion, and shall sustain the Administration in all its efforts to enforce the laws, restore the Union as it was, and preserve the Constitution as it is. But I am opposed to frequent violations of the Constitution, and to unconditional and universal emancipation.

REPUBLICAN -- D__n the Constitution! -- What has it to do with the war? The `war power’ gives the President the right to arrest whoever he pleases and to suspend the writ of Habeas Corpus when he pleases, and gives Congress the right to emancipate the slaves, and I’m in favor of doing it if necessary.”

The late spring and summer of 1863, however, was destined to be a trying time in Greene County as it was for Pennsylvania and the rest of the country. It started on April 20 and April 21, 1863, when two columns of approximately 7000 Confederate troops made their way out of the Shenandoah Valley headed on a raid against the B&O Railroad facilities in western Virginia. A force of infantry, cavalry, and artillery, led by Brigadier General John D. Imboden headed toward the towns of Beverly, Philippi, and Grafton. Brigadier General William E. (Grumble) Jones led the second column composed of 3000 men, mostly cavalry. Jones was leading his detachment toward the bridges on the Cheat River and the Monongehela River near Morgantown in Monongalia County. Arriving at Rowlesburg on the Cheat River on April 26, Jones was met by Major J. H. Showalter with two hundred fifty men from the 6th (West) Virginia Infantry. Showalter put up a strong defense, and Jones eventually skirted the Union position and moved on to Morgantown with 1500 men. In the meantime, Showalter, fearing for the safety of his small force, hastily retreated to Uniontown, Pennsylvania, taking with him five hundred men and four pieces of artillery. He proceeded from there to Connellsville, where he placed his troops on a train bound for Pittsburgh, intending to board a riverboat for Wheeling. Jones’ force of 1500 Confederate cavalry occupied Morgantown at about four o’clock in the afternoon of April 27, 1863. Panic spread throughout western Pennsylvania and Wheeling.
After occupying Morgantown, the rebels began searching the vicinty and making prisoners of certain citizens who were known to be strong Union supporters. One of these, identified by the Wheeling Daily Intelligencer as a Colonel Boyers, a deputy marshall, rode north toward Waynesburg just as the Confederate cavalry approached his home. He lived two miles down the Monongahela River from Morgantown and rode all the way through Waynesburg, arriving in Washington, Pennsylvania about 11 o’clock that night. In the meantime, another rider left Waynesburg around 2 o’clock the next morning bringing to Washington the news that Confederate cavalry was reported to be at Newtown [Kirby], only nine miles from Waynesburg. Late in the evening of April 27, several trains that had been waiting at Cameron arrived in Wheeling with news that a bridge had been burned at Burton and rebel cavalry were seen twenty miles east of Cameron. The commander of the Union forces at Wheeling, Captain W. C. Thorpe of the 13th United States Infantry, became even more alarmed when it was mistakenly reported that Confederate cavalry was at Waynesburg.
By the morning of April 28, 1863, however, Jones, after destroying the turnpike suspension bridge over the Cheat River, had moved off to attack the garrison at Farmington and search for Imboden near Clarksburg. By May 6, 1863, The Waynesburg Messenger reported that the excitement “has almost entirely subsided.” The newspaper noted that Waynesburg’s Committee of Public Safety had gotten the “home forces” in readiness, and Washington County had sent a company of infantry commanded by a Captain Wishart. By Saturday, May 2, 1863, the alarm was over and the Washington County men went home. Now, “all is quiet, and all alarm allayed.”
The Reporter and Tribune from Washington, Pennsylvania, however, published an interesting piece on May 13, 1863 under the headline: “A Genuine Copperhead.” It seemed that the Uniontown papers were reporting that Major Showalter who had again occupied Morgantown captured and brought with him to Uniontown a man named David Lilly. Lilly was accused of being a spy for the Confederate raiders and a traitor who led the rebels around Morgantown to the homes of prominent Union men. Moreover, Lilly had been seen in Uniontown a few days before the raid, leading to speculation that he was scouting for a foray into Fayette County. The paper described Lilly as “a Democrat of the Vallandigham stripe,” referring to a notorious Peace Democrat from Ohio who was eventually banished to the South. The most curious thing about Lilly, however, was that he was a resident of Pennsylvania and a member of the Waynesburg bar.

An Investigation Into Anti-war Sentiment in Greene County, Pennsylvania

2008-03-21T05:35:00.000-07:00

Part I: “A Speck of War in Greene County”

When I was living on our family farm on Fonner Run in Morris Township during the early 1960s, there was a pile of old lumber smothered in brush in the center of our “Bottom” pasture which was all that remained of what my family called the “old sheep shed.” The site intrigued me as a boy because of the family legend that went with the ruins. My father, Henry Fonner, and his brothers and sisters all told the story that reached back to the time of the American Civil War. It seems that one of the Fonner girls (no one remembered her name) was engaged to a young man who was drafted to serve in the Union army. Fearing for his safety and hoping to keep him from being picked up by the military authorities that were patrolling Morris Township looking for draft dodgers and deserters, she hid him in the sheep shed until the patrols had left the vicinity.
As I thought about this story, I became fascinated by the motives that would make a normally law-abiding farm girl of Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry defy the national government and risk being jailed herself. One explanation that my family gave was that the Fonners, being Pennsylvania Dutch, were conscientious objectors and opposed to the war on religious grounds. Indeed, on one county enrollment form I found that my great-grandfather, Frederick Fonner, was listed as “exempt” from military service, although no reason was given. There may have been some truth to this explanation, however, since I am not aware of anyone from my father’s family serving in the military until he and his brother, James Fonner, were drafted for service in World War II.
However that may be, the legend of the old sheep shed fired my imagination, and I became interested in finding out just how wide spread this resistance to the military draft was in Greene County during the Civil War. Accordingly, I began an investigation into anti-war sentiment in Greene County and to find clues to measure the extent of disloyalty expressed by Greene County residents during the Civil War. A Pennsylvania historian named Arnold Shank, in a book entitled The Pennsylvania Anti-war Movement, 1861-1865, provided a good starting point for understanding the extent of opposition to the Union war effort throughout the state. My investigation intensified, however, when another Pennsylvania historian, George A. Turner of Bloomsburg University, in his work on Columbia County in the Civil War, listed Greene County among three or four counties in western Pennsylvania where anti-war agitation was particularly acute. According to Turner, opposition to Abraham Lincoln’s war measures in Pennsylvania focused in several rural counties located in three sections across the state. Anti-war movements were thus found in southwestern Pennsylvania in counties bordering western Virginia, the central part of the state, and the anthracite coal region in northeastern Pennsylvania. All of these counties were strongholds of the Democratic Party, so much of this anti-war sentiment was based on political opposition to the Republican party and disagreement over how the war should be prosecuted.
Dr. G. Wayne Smith, in his History of Greene County, for example, on page 27, states unequivocally that “Greene County strongly supported the Union during the Civil War.” It has been estimated that 1800 men from Greene County served in at least forty different military units of the Union army, including several hundred men who served in regiments raised in western Virginia. Of the men who served, 352 died from either battlefield wounds or disease. Dr. Smith cites two Greene Countians, James Jackson Purman and James M. Pipes, who received the Congressional Medal of Honor. No record has been found of any person from Greene County who served in a military unit of the Confederate States. At home, patriotism ran high, and The Waynesburg Messenger reported on July 16, 1862, that the women of the town were organizing a soldiers’ relief society. Yet, there were still unsettling hints of problems that would emerge before the war ran its course.
Among the Greene County men serving in western Virginia regiments was Henry Solomon White from the Jollytown area who enlisted as a private in Company N of the 6th (West) Virginia Infantry in September 1861. The 6th (West) Virginia Infantry was used primarily to guard the B&O Railroad facilities in western Virginia and spent most of its time on patrols looking for guerrilla bands, guarding railroad bridges, and fighting off raids by Confederate cavalry and infantry from eastern Virginia. Private White kept a small diary of his experiences, and an abstract of that diary is in the collection of the Cornerstone Genealogical Society in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania. An outspoken supporter of the Union war effort, White noted in his diary on April 15, 1862 that “bushwhackers have begun their guerrilla warfare in this country [near Farmington] this spring. I hope they will meet with untimely graves. They must give over and quit their secession principles or their lives, either will do.”
Three weeks later, Captain J. H. Showalter of Company A received information that some of these “bushwhackers” had dispersed, agreeing to meet and reorganize at Davistown in Dunkard Township, Greene County, Pennsylvania. Thus, on Monday, May 5, 1862, Private White made an ominous entry in his diary regarding his native county. He wrote that Lieutenant Pierpont of Company A had come to the camp of Company N to get some men to help “scout Monongalia, Greene, and Fayette Counties for secessionists and Knights of the Golden Circle [a secret organization of Southern sympathizers].” Leaving camp around four o’clock in the afternoon, the detachment of seventy men from companies A and N was accompanied by Captain Showalter and Lieutenant Pierpont of Company A and Captain John Kenney and Lieutenant Jackson Moore of Company N. Marching at night, the men reached Laurel Point in Monongalia County on Tuesday. After a day’s rest, they set out for Davistown, eighteen miles away that night. Crossing the border into Pennsylvania, the troop of Union soldiers stealthily approached the sleeping village, arriving on the outskirts of Davistown around three o’clock in the morning. Under cover of early morning darkness, Captain Showalter arranged his men on the ridges that enclosed the town.
In an article published May 14, 1862, The Waynesburg Messenger reported that the “inhabitants of the little town were greatly astonished when they awoke up in the morning and found a picket of seventy soldiers armed with the unerring Minie rifle, stationed on the hills around the town.” The Federal soldiers made a thorough search of the vicinity, but could not find any of the rebels they were hunting. Private White was not present, but in his diary on May 9, 1862, he noted that the “scouters” returned to camp and nothing much happened “while they were gone more than the inhabitants were very much frightened at the approach of our men in that country.”
Calling the incident “A Speck of War in Greene County,” the correspondent for the Messenger added that the residents of Davistown “served up” a warm breakfast, “which was eagerly discussed by the wet and hungry soldiers.” He further added that the “soldiers speak highly of the hospitality of the citizens of Davistown and vicinity.”
The first reported encounter between Greene County civilians and armed Federal troops during the Civil War therefore ended, after some initial trepidation, in a public display of patriotism and mutual respect. Reports of Knights of the Golden Circle operating in the area of Davistown seemed to be false. Whether future encounters would end so happily remained to be seen.

Introduction

2008-03-19T09:17:00.000-07:00

I am in the process of researching various topics dealing with Pennsylvania's role in the American Civil War. Although sometimes overlooked by some researchers, Pennsylvania has a more varied history in this matter than one might realize. The Commonwealth sent thousands of her young men to serve in the Union armies, both east and west. Politically, however, the state was divided in its loyalties with some segments of the population strongly supporting Lincoln and the Republican party's war policies. The Democrats in the state were divided into two main camps: war Democrats who supported the war effort, although not necessarily the republican war policies, and peace Democrats, who opposed the war effort and sought various negotiated settlements with the South. Inevitably, the peace wing of the Democratic party became associated in the minds of the Republicans with the copperhead movements found in other states of the North, particularly the states of the old northwest. I became interested in this topic when I was younger and heard stories of an ancestor in my father's family who hid her fiance in a sheep shed on our family farm in Greene County, Pennsylvania, rather than allow him to be drafted into the army. At any rate, I have a broad interest in the subject of the impact of the war on the state. From time to time, I will be posting bibliographical material and open thoughts on my research.