Pennsylvania in the Civil War

Pennsylvania in the Civil War

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In late June, citizens in Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, and other locations prepared for invasion by digging fortifications. South-central Pennsylvanians clogged the roads, driving their belongings and livestock northward beyond the enemy's reach. Yet in spite of Governor Curtin's repeated calls for volunteers to defend the Commonwealth, citizens responded less than enthusiastically. Days after Curtin's final plea for sixty thousand recruits, only sixteen thousand men had come forward. Both the New York militia that hurried to Harrisburg as well as invading Confederates noticed and abundance of military-age men loitering on town streets, seemingly indifferent to the crisis. Before Lee decided to concentrate his troops near Gettysburg, a few encounters between Confederate troops and Curtin's emergency militia occurred at Wrightsville, Camp Hill (Sporting Hill), and near Gettysburg. Except for preventing easy Confederate crossing of the Susquehanna by burning the Wrightsville bridge, militia activity could be summed up in the words of a Confederate general who termed it "a source of amusement to my troops."

One historian comments that Pennsylvania's response to the Confederate invasion of 1863 "was not one of the state's finest hours." Yet the culminating event of the campaign, the July 1-3 Battle of Gettysburg, chronicled more ennobling deeds for Pennsylvanians. This significant victory for the Union was fought on Pennsylvania soil, with a Pennsylvanian, George G. Meade, in command of the Army of the Potomac. Generals' Winfield S. Hancock and John F. Reynolds, corps commanders, who played conspicuous roles in the battle, were Pennsylvanians. Lieutenant Col. Strong Vincent earned his general's star by giving up his life on Little Round Top. More than twenty-eight thousand Pennsylvania officers and enlisted men stood in the ranks at Gettysburg-nearly one-third of Meade's army, and performed some of the battle's most conspicuous acts of selfless courage.

Gettysburg became an overnight sensation, recognized as the battle where the fortunes of war turned for the Union. Almost as soon as the fighting ceased, Pennsylvanians took steps to preserve the battlefield. Couple with President Lincoln's address for the union dead, Gettysburg in time became the Civil War's most popular battlefield, drawing nearly two million visitors annually.

The Union forces did not win the Civil War simply through battlefield victories. Success depended on the link between troops at the front and their home communities. Modern armies need sophisticated ordnance, supplies, and transportation, as well as social networks at home that boost troop morale. Behind the battle lines, Pennsylvania poised itself against the Confederacy with industrial power and organizations dedicated to aiding soldiers and their families. Support for the union on the home front ranged from patriotism to greed. There were pockets of dissenters everywhere, and their reasons for opposing the war varied. Some in cities with ties to the South were pro-Southern "Copperheads," while many urban immigrants opposed a war that promised to emancipate blacks. Most Pennsylvania dissenters opposed wartime authority emanating from a distant federal government. Within Pennsylvania, a longtime Democratic state, politics proceeded turbulently during a war fought by a Republican administration, especially during periods when there seemed no end to the war, Democrats attacked government tyranny and charged that freed slaves would threaten Pennsylvania jobs. But timely military victories and Governor Andrew Curtin's devotion to the Lincoln administration sustained Pennsylvania's support. Of all the northern governors, Lincoln relied heavily on Curtin for aid and advice. One of Curtin's most memorable endeavors, the 1862 Altoona War Governors' Conference, quelled discord among northern governors and affirmed support for Lincoln's war policies. The Lincoln administration's efforts to draft northerners into military service provoked anti-war sentiment. Draftees could avoid service by hiring a substitute or paying a $300 commutation fee, inciting cries of "a rich man's war but a poor man's fight." Communities often sponsored balls or raffles to raise commutation money. In Pennsylvania's mountain and anthracite regions many eluded service, deserted, or lashed out against the draft. In northeastern Pennsylvania mobs of miners rioted and shut down collieries. The federal government rushed in troops to sustain the flow of coal and remained until the war's end.