History Commons^™

Apple Of Gold In A Picture Of Silver: The Constitution And Liberty, Allen C. Guelzo

Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications

In the threatening winter of 1861, as the United States was being ~ inched ever- closer td the outbreak of civil war by the secession of the Southern states over the issue of black slavery, the newly elected president, Abraham Lincoln, opened up a confidential correspondence with a f6rmer Southern political colleague, Alexander Stephens of Georgia. Stephens had made headlines in November 1860, in a speech to the Georgia legislature, urging Georgia not to follow tlie South into secession. Lincoln sent him a friendly note, asking- for a printed copy of the speech-and perhaps warming Stephens to an invitation to …

Ms-020: The Papers Of John H. Warner, Melodie A. Foster

All Finding Aids

The John H. Warner collection consists of thirty-eight letters written by Warner to family members and friends during the period October 1, 1862 - May 5, 1865. The affectionate, optimistic letters provide a picture of camp, and later hospital life during the Civil War through the eyes of a young soldier from New York.

Special Collections and College Archives Finding Aids are discovery tools used to describe and provide access to our holdings. Finding aids include historical and biographical information about each collection in addition to inventories of their content. More information about our collections can be found on our …

Ms-011: Lewis W. Tway Collection, Melodie A. Foster

All Finding Aids

The Lewis W. Tway Collection consists of two boxes of Civil War mementos. Items carried by Tway during the war include a "housewife", bible, inkwell, diary, currency (fractional and postage) and photographs (of himself and another soldier). The collection contains a letter written to his sister soon after he was wounded, the torn swatch of pants through which the bullet entered his leg, and two letters from a young lady whose comfort package he received in 1865. Also included in the collection are Tway's official papers from the war: his furlough, discharge and pension certificates.

Items from the 50th reunion …

Ms-009: Ambrose Henry Hayward Papers, Melodie A. Foster

All Finding Aids

The Ambrose Henry Hayward Collection consists primarily of correspondence from the period April 14, 1861 through August 17, 1864. The bulk of the letters were written by A.H. Hayward to his father, sister and brothers, but the collection includes 3 letters written by Melville Hayward of the 7th New York (6/22/1862, 7/10/1862, 7/23/1862), letters from Henry's commanding officers regarding his service and four letters regarding Henry's death.

Also included in the collection are several newspaper clippings about the 28th Pennsylvania, Hayward's 1862 promotion to Sergeant, and 19 envelopes addressed to Mr. Ambrose, Mr. Albert, Mr. John and Miss Hannah C. …

Ms-008: Papers Of William H. Young, Kelly Kemp

All Finding Aids

The William H. Young Collection is divided into two Series. I. Biographical Information; and II. Correspondence. This collection consists primarily of correspondence between William H. Young and his wife Susan from August 10, 1862 through March 18, 1865 (with gaps). Most of the letters are written by Young to his wife, with the exception of one dated February 8, 1863, which she writes to him. This collection focuses on the battles between the Confederate and Union armies in the Western Theater of the war. Young writes about the Yankees attempt to capture Vicksburg, Mississippi and also gives a detailed account …

The Gettysburg Battlefield, One Century Ago, Benjamin Y. Dixon

Adams County History

In the fall of 1899, Colonel John Nicholson reported on the recent changes being made to the Gettysburg National Military park. The park held a dedication ceremony that July for a new equestrian statue to General John Reynolds erected northwest of town. It was a shiny goldenbrown, polished-bronze statue sculpted by Henry Kirke Bush-Brown (his second equestrian statue at Gettysburg in three years). The horse and rider, balancing on two legs stood on a large pedestal near the new avenue in his name. Reynolds Avenue and adjoining Wadsworth, Doubleday, and Robinson Avenues were new to the battlefield as well. These …

Adams County History 2000

Adams County History

No abstract provided.

Come-Outers And Community Men: Abraham Lincoln And The Idea Of Community In Nineteenth-Century America, Allen C. Guelzo

Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications

The most eloquent and moving words Abraham Lincoln ever uttered about any community were those "few and simple words" he spoke on the rear platform of the railroad car that lay waiting on the morning of February 11, 1861, to take him to Washington, to the presidency, and ultimately to his death. As his "own breast heaved with emotion" so that "he could scarcely command his feelings sufficiently to commence" (in the description of James C. Conkling), Lincoln declared that "No one, not in my situation, can appreciate my feeling of sadness at this parting." To leave Springfield was to …

The Civil War Letters Of Jeremiah Mickly Of Franklin Township, Adams County, Eric Ledell Smith

Adams County History

On December 2, 1862, just eleven days before the Battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia, Jeremiah Mickly said goodbye to his wife and two children and reported for duty with the 177th Pennsylvania Infantry to become a Civil War chaplain. The only known photograph ofMickly shows him dressed in the standard chaplain's uniform of the day: a plain black frock coat with a standing collar and black buttons with plain black pantaloons. Like many other Civil War soldiers, Mickly re-enlisted for service after his stint with the 177th ended, becoming chaplain of the 43rd Regiment, United States Colored Troops. Impressed with the …

Some Culp Family Members In The Civil War, David A. Culp

Adams County History

In the 1860s Gettysburg had a population of around 2,400. The Culps had lived there since 1787, the year Christopher Culp purchased the farm, located on the east end of town, with its western boundry starting at Baltimore St. between Breckenridge and South Streets, going northeast to South Stratton St. and Wall Alley East, then on to East Middle St. between South Stratton and Liberty Streets. The town more or less ended at the farm boundary. Prominent on the farm and southeast of town was Culp's Hill. Five generations of Culps had lived in Gettysburg by the time of the …

Holland's Life Of Abraham Lincoln, Josiah Gilbert Holland, Allen C. Guelzo

Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications

"Soon after the assassination of President Lincoln in April 1865, newspaper editor Josiah Gilbert Holland traveled to Illinois to talk with people who had known Abraham Lincoln “back when.” In 1866 Holland published the earliest full-scale life of the fallen leader. A great popular success, Holland’s biography introduced American readers who were hungry for personal information about Lincoln’s early life to some of the most famous and enduring Lincoln stories. From Holland the reader learned about Lincoln making restitution for a ruined book, the railsplitter earning his first silver dollar, the millhorse’s kick to his head, the wrestling match with …

Building A Battle Site: Roads To And Through Gettysburg, Elwood W. Christ

Adams County History

On the morning of 1 July 1863, lead elements of Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia advanced on the town of Gettysburg situated in the lush farm lands of south-central Pennsylvania just eight miles east of the South Mountain in Adams county. The Southern reconnaissance in force made early that summer morning was destined not only to change the history of the struggling Confederacy, but also to set the infant United States republic, indeed the world, on courses towards more democratic forms of government.

Although many historians have dwelled on those three fateful days in 1863, few …

Abraham Lincoln And The Doctrine Of Necessity, Allen C. Guelzo

Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications

Abraham Lincoln was a fatalist. That, at least, was what he told many people over the course of his life. "I have all my life been a fatalist," Lincoln informed his Illinois congressional ally, Isaac Arnold. "Mr. Lincoln was a fatalist," remembered Henry Clay Whitney, one of his Springfield law clerks, "he believed ... that the universe is governed by one uniform, unbroken, primordial law." His Springfield law partner William Henry Herndon, likewise, affirmed that Lincoln "believed in predestination, foreordination, that all things were fixed, doomed one way or the other, from which there was no appeal." Even Mary Todd …

Book Review: The Presidency Of Abraham Lincoln, By Phillip Shaw Paludan, Allen C. Guelzo

Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications

Americans have had a highly complex love-hate relationship with politics, especially with political ideology. Recent books on the state of American politics underscore the resentment Americans feel at governments that have grown bloated and indifferent. And the groundswell of complaints about congressional "gridlock" and budgetary "train wrecks" seems to show that Americans are particularly impatient with political ideologues who insist on letting their philosophies, economics, or values get in the way of consensus and problem solving. Yet tumbling out of every newspaper, radio, and television, now as never before in this generation, is evidence of Americans' possession by political polarizations …

William And Isabel: Parallels Between The Life And Times Of The William Bliss Family, Transplanted New Englanders At Gettysburg, And A Nineteenth-Century Novel, 'Isabel Carollton: A Personal Retrospect' By Kneller Glen, Elwood W. Christ

Adams County History

By 3 July 1863, Union troops under the command of General George G. Meade and elements of General Robert E. Lee's Confederate army had struggled for two days over the rolling farm lands, ridges, and rocky crags around a small farming community and county seat known as Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Within the encompassing whirlpool ofbattle, however, smaller dramas had unfolded, and one of them is of interest to us here. The soldiers had been fighting for the possession of a house and barn situated equidistant between the battle lines about one and onequarter miles south-southwest of the town square. During a …

A Tour Of Gettysburg's Visual Battle Damage, Timothy H. Smith

Adams County History

A little-known aspect of the Battle of Gettysburg is the story behind the Civil War battle damage still present m some of the town's buildings. During the first three days of July 1863, cannons fired over and into Gettysburg, and as a result some of the homes were inadvertently struck by the shells. As a battlefield guide, the author has driven by these structures everyday for the past few years, and a highlight of any tour is a stop in front of the Sheads house on Buford Avenue, where one can point up to an artillery shell embedded just to …

Union Civilian Leaders, Allen C. Guelzo

Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications

The American Civil War was a war of civilians. The fact that 3 million or so of them happened to be in uniform was almost incidental, since the soldiers, sailors, and officers of both the Union and Confederate armies were mostly civilian volunteers who retained close contacts with their civilian social worlds, who brought 1f9Culent civilian attitudes into the ranks with them, and who fully expected to return to civilian life as soon as the shooting was over. By the same token, civilian communities in both North and South kept closely in touch with their volunteers all through the war, …

Catherine Mary White Foster's Eyewitness Account Of The Battle Of Gettysburg, With Background On The Foster Family Union Soldiers, David A. Murdoch

Adams County History

Catherine Mary White Foster lived with her elderly parents in the red brick house on the northwest corner of Washington and High Streets in Gettysburg at the time of the battle, 1-3 July 1863. She was the only child of James White Foster and Catherine (nee Swope) Foster (a former resident of Lancaster county), who married on 11 May 1817 and settled in Gettysburg, Adams county, Pennsylvania. Her father, James White Foster, had served his country as a first lieutenant in the War of 1812. Her grandparents, James Foster and Catherine (nee White) Foster, had emigrated with her father and …