Even if you are not a die-hard fan of Civil War history, you might have heard of the Battle of Cold Harbor, fought in Hanover County, Virginia, not far northeast of Richmond. The conflict, fought June 1-3, 1864, resulted in extremely heavy causalities to Grant’s Union forces. Click here for
I am on a History Channel list that emails me a “This Day in History” tidbit every day. Today’s commemorates the first robbery of a moving train. The robbery was committed on October 6, 1866 by the Reno gang. Click here for the story. It caught my eye because my husband’s
My previous post shared a July 21, 1905 article from the York Daily about Dr. Reed of Lancaster coming to look for the camp where his grandfather guarded Revolutionary War prisoners. We know the site today as Camp Security. Dr. Reed’s visit must have been important in the news of
Continuing the series of posts extracted from the recently updated history of Camp Security, which can be accessed at www.campsecurity.org, this post quotes extensively from the memoirs of Sergeant Roger Lamb of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers (23rd Regiment of Foot). The British prisoner-of-war left one of the few eyewitness accounts
In 2010 a Greenbrier County, West Virginia resident was plowing his garden and unearthed a round metal object, probably brass. It was somewhat weathered, with some stains that a collector indicated that it might have been through a fire. It was a seal of the type used to emboss official
Call it providence, serendipity, fate, karma or whatever you want, but in the study of history, as with many things, it is remarkable how undiscovered resources appear at exactly the right time. Just as York County Heritage Trust came out with a new book of mostly previously unpublished drawings by
If you think news coverage is slanted and Democrats and Republicans are at odds today, you should have been around during the Civil War. My recent York Sunday News column below compares the coverage given the speakers at the November 1863 Gettysburg National Cemetery dedication. Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address Not Acclaimed
The June 16, 1863 weekly York Gazette carried the article below copied from the Harrisburg Telegraph newspaper the day before. Citizens of south central Pennsylvania were beginning to realize the imminent threat of invasion was very real. To Arms! To Arms! The Invasion of the Northern States–The Entire Rebel Army
The public is invited by the Red Lion Area Historical Society to attend Jonathan Stayer’s program on Camp Security at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 22, 2012. It is at St. John’s UCC, 161 N. Main St., Red Lion (rear entrance). Stayer, Supervisor of Reference Services at the Pennsylvania State Archives,
I found this 1777 letter last week while looking through the microfilms of the Papers of the Continental Congress at the National Archives. It seems that Colonel Thomas Hartley of York was trying to arm his regiment. He thought the gunsmiths of neighboring Lancaster County would help supply him, but