WandaCKeesey

A CIVIL WAR CAPITAL
(article) By Wanda C. Keesey

The Civil War years were a testing time for the country.   And no less a testing ground for Pennsylvania's capital city, Harrisburg.

Harrisburg has a rich Civil War history. Not because of battles fought there. There were none, although this is may have only been a matter of timing. Blood didn't have to run in the streets to make the city important to the Civil War efforts.

Because Harrisburg was a hub of transport and centrally located, it was also a target. There were as many as four major rail lines that passed through the city in the 1800's. The newly finished Pennsylvania Canal and the Susquehanna River provided means for water access. It was located between the big industrial cities of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, and easily accessible to Washington D.C.

Tension was high in Pennsylvania long before the first shots were fired at Fort Sumter. Communities throughout the Commonwealth had begun enlisting men and forming companies of 60 to 120 men as soon as the southern states began seceding from the Union the year before. Many of these communities sent communication to newly elected Governor Andrew Gregg Curtin telling him that they had troops ready to go to war.

When it was apparent that war had arrived, President Lincoln sent out a call for an army to defend the Union. Pennsylvania was destined to far exceed the quota they were given.

The day after the Presidential order was sent out, hundreds of men began arriving in a city ill prepared to house or feed them. The first to reach Harrisburg were housed in hotels and schools, and shipped out as soon as they could be formed into battalions. Governor Curtin began looking for a place to put an encampment. Most of the new arrivals were in need of training. Dauphin County officials offered the use of the County Agricultural Fairgrounds as a Camp of Rendezvous, Governor Curtin accepted their offer and with Major Joseph Farmer Knipe and Colonel Edward C. Williams began preparing the camp to house the thousands who were to pass through.

How does the city fit in? The government had its camp and the army was arriving. They had to be feed, clothed, trained and treated for ailments if there were any among them.

The citizens of Harrisburg and the surrounding area were asked to provide bread, meat, vegetables, fruit, clothing, bedding, and medicine to those coming to their area. They answered the call.   But until the increased crops were ready to harvest and the livestock ready to butcher, others in the commonwealth had to help provide what they could.

Many of the municipalities who had sent troops also provided food, clothing, bedding and tents.

When food was a problem, individual counties came through with supplies for distribution to those stationed at Camp Curtin. With these supplies and those from local farms, the contracted bakeries, including the ovens at the Harrisburg Lunatic Asylum, worked full time every day and all night to bake enough bread to feed the soldiers. Stock yards were built to hold the livestock sent by rail to feed the troops. The ladies of the city baked pies and cakes and at one point when blankets were needed, they provided them.

Of course there were those who took advantage of the war to try and make their fortune. Many of the scams will be recognized as still being done today: The contractor who provides inferior product; those who posed as agents for the Volunteer Relief Fund and ran off with their collections; the clerks at Camp Curtin who short rationed the troops and tried to sell the extra supplies; the contractor who asked the soldiers in the kitchens of the camp to keep the old coffee grounds which they collected on their return trip in exchange for whiskey. These enterprising thieves then dried and sold the used grounds to unsuspecting city residents. Not much is new in the way of devious schemes.

Some were honest endeavors to take advantage of the opportunity to make money as in the case of the omnibuses drivers that offered a round trip ride to the army camp and back to the city. One such business came from as far away as Carlisle. Due to their greed, after a short time many of these companies found that they had run their animals into the ground and had no livestock fit to haul the omnibuses.

But far exceeding the number of opportunists were those that supported their brothers, fathers, sons and husbands going into battle.

Harrisburg was involved with the war effort for the duration. When the population of Camp Curtin was low, during the times when the troops had been trained had been shipped out, the city prepared to receive the wounded, and at times, prisoners. Soldiers being released from duty returned to Pennsylvania's Camp Curtin to be mustered out.

Again the citizens of the capital city answered the call. The local women took matters into their hands taking on the task of caring for those returned to them wounded or sick. Groups of women from several cities as well as the local ladies gathered in Harrisburg to help. Schools and churchs were called to serve as hospitals when the facilities at the Camp were not adequate. Many of the local ladies, not wanting to abandon their nursing duties in the evenings, took their patients into their homes and gave them constant care.

In late 1862 the extra stress of possible invasion was brought to bare on the city and its residents. Not everyone thought this was a real threat. The Pennsylvania Reserves had to be rebuilt. Volunteers again rallied, but when the invasion did not happen, the troops were set south to join their brothers.

As it turned out, the reassignment of these troops was premature. Again Harrisburg and the borders of Pennsylvania were left unguarded. In mid-June, 1863, two new divisions were set up to protect the state from invasion. The Department of the Susquehanna and the Department of the Monongahela but they were armies on paper only. Major General Darius Nash Couch in charge of the Department of the Susquehanna was a general without manpower.   Again the call was sent out. But the state had been bleed of its men willing to risk their lives rather than raise and care for their children.

Governor Curtin sent a desperate plea to the other States in the north asking for their help. The city had to be fortified. If Harrisburg fell, Philadelphia, New York City, and Washington would shortly follow.   So it was that troops from New York guarded the western banks of the Susquehanna River.

As it happened, the Confederates planned to crossing the river at Wrightsville and moving east to take the city, with another branch of the army ready to flank the Union troops. If the citizens of that small river town hadn't burned the mile long covered bridge located there, they might have made it. But that fact and the urgent recall from General Lee for his troops to gather at the small town of Gettysburg in southern Pennsylvania, set up one of Lee's greatest defeats.

This article was not meant to give any historical data; as dates, names, or places. It was meant to give the reader a general idea of the living conditions in a Civil War Capital in the north. I hope its done that.

CIVIL WAR CITY Harrisburg, Pennsylvania 1861-1865 by William J Miller; published by White Mane Publishing Company, Inc. , PO Box 152, Shippensburg, PA 17257-0152 ISBN 0-942597-15-X (alk. Paper)   ISBN 1-57249-237-6 (pbk)

CONFEDERATE INVASION OF THE WEST SHORE-1863 by Robert Grant Crist, published by Lemoyne Trust Company, Lemoyne, PA from a paper presented before the Cumberland County Historical Society and Hamilton Library Association on March 23, 1962.

Civil War Civilians by Juanita Leisch, Thomas Publications, Gettysburg, PA ISBN 0-939631-70-9