Another victim of J.E.B. Stuart
An early war etching of some of “Jeb” Stuart’s Virginia cavaliers. From Harper’s Weekly.
Add Jefferson area merchant Conrad Myers to the long list of York County merchants who felt the sting of the Confederate raiding parties during the Gettysburg Campaign. Stuart’s cavaliers paused to rob more than a dozen shopkeepers from Jefferson to Dillsburg over a 24-hour period. Throw in those merchants in York, Wrightsville, and other locales visited by the cavalry and infantry of Jubal Early, and it was a bad week for several families who relied on the weekly income from these stores for their livelihoods.
Late on the afternoon of June 30, 1863, according to Myers’ later sworn testimony, a group of Rebel cavalrymen dismounted and “forcibly entered” his locked store in North Codorus Township. The helped themselves to his inventory, taking muslins, calicoes, cloth, silks, silverware, hatchets, files, shoes, jugs, boots, caps, hats, coffee pots, buckets, and other dry goods and sundries. They also snatched up foodstuffs, walking of with jars of molasses, bottles of wine, kegs of whiskey, All told, a stunned Myers watched vainly as the Rebs exited carrying off goods he later valued at $3150 – a hefty sum in the summer of 1863.
One Confederate “took about twenty dollars in money from the drawer,” and then, to Myers’ dismay, other soldiers entered his stable and stole a sorrel. They led the horse away. Another party visited a nearby grist mill, confiscating 50 bushels of corn that belonged to Myers.
It was not one of Conrad Myers’ better days.
