Civil War Voices from York County, Pa.: Remembering the Rebellion and the Gettysburg Campaign

The Pennsylvania border county of York and its people stood smack in the middle of things - where South met North - in the American Civil War. That war roiled York County from its tip near the capital of Harrisburg to its 40-mile base at the Mason-Dixon Line. Union soldiers moved to the South after seasoning and staging on county soil. Train cars dripping with blood carried many wounded and diseased soldiers back to a mammoth U.S. military hospital on York parkland. Thousands of York County residents donned blue uniforms, and untold scores died. The war marched onto county soil in those terrible days before the Battle of Gettysburg. The four-day Confederate visit drained money, food, supplies, and horseflesh. Soldiers in blue and gray died in fighting at Hanover and Wrightsville. Gettysburg came next, and county residents gathered food and supplies to treat the wounds of battle, a short 30 miles away. In "Civil War Voices from York County, Pa.", Scott L. Mingus Sr. and James McClure use oral histories, letters, diaries, and newspaper accounts to tell the stories of York countians in those bleak days, 150 years ago. They give a vibrant voice to those living, serving, and dying in a border county in this most tumultuous period in America's history.