History 304: Historiography and Methods

Given that the purpose of the methods classes in our History Department is to develop students as researchers, it is no surprise that I have learned a great deal in this area as a result of 304 and 204. That said, particularly with this most recent project, there are some things that (even if taught in class) did not register fully until I discovered them myself. As a result, if this post is to be a legacy for future history students, perhaps this too will go relatively unmarked, though I hope not.

My first lesson learned was probably the importance of being thorough. It’s easy to miss little details, but the little details are often the most interesting parts; the things most likely to differ from source to source and most likely to produce creative, new conclusions at the end of the road. If you only read to find what you’re looking for, you’ll miss what’s there in front of you, and that is a waste of a source.

My second point is something that I’m sure is emphasized by all professors in all classes, but I choose to emphasize it here again for its importance. Creativity is the key to historical research. If all information were found exactly where everyone expected it to be, historians would be out of a job. Find different avenues, use sources and databases and archival approaches that seem unorthodox, and always look for connections between them (ancestry.com was not just useful for our first lab, for instance. I tried using it to track down Bentz family members in Carlisle). Even if it seems tedious and difficult, and even if your first few ideas come up empty, there are always different approaches and always more information to find.

I suppose my last idea branches off from the first two, but it is perhaps the most important. Time management is incredibly important to historical research. With the volume of sources at the disposal of even an underclassman history student at Dickinson, along with the need to be thorough and the importance of being creative in the research at hand, planning carefully is paramount to success.

It all started one late night in the library, searching through microfilm around Henry Spradley’s death date. According to Susan Cavenagh and her headstone documentation, Henry W. Spradley died on April 9th, 1897. As I browsed beyond the 9th in the Carlisle Herald microfilm, at Widner-Spahr library, I came across an article on April 12th.

Carlisle Herald 1897 - April 12

I was ecstatic. The article connects Henry Spradley with Lincoln Cemetery and then with Dickinson College as well! Not only that, but it allowed me to piece together his life story, such as what his occupation had been, a janitor and bell ringer at Dickinson. And the fact that whites, faculty, and the choir turned out to his funeral, especially when every other black death I had research seemed unimportant to local whites, was simply amazing.

Carlisle Herald 1897 - April 13th

As I continued to search the microfilm, I also found this entry. I really hope at some point I can find records of these speeches of the faculty. Both these articles really highlight how respected Spradley was to this community.

At some point, I ran back to CCHS because I knew they had a booklet that I could easily find names for the Carlisle Valley Sentinel during certain years of the microfilm. I ended up finding another brief entry about Henry Spradley in the Carlisle Valley Sentinel on August 22nd, 1879.

Carlisle Valley Sentinel 1879 - Aug 22nd

Now even though he was appointed in this article, does not mean that he wasn’t working at Dickinson before this date. But it does say that he was the designated janitor of our own Old West for around 18 years!

I then went to the databases to see what further information I could find on him. I knew I had not found information on Spradley in all the databases I had searched before, but I tried again and played around with the name more. There is unfortunately not an entry for him in his regiment on the American Civil War Research database. However, I found multiple entries for him on ancestry. I was able to find him in the 1870 Census, 1880 Census and I found three civil war pension files for him (One, Two, Three). I am also fairly positive that this is his son, Shirley Spradley, in the 1900 Census. I would think that Shirley would be 26, not 25 by then, but there were only about a dozen Spradley’s and no other Shirley’s unless another one moved in.

1870 Census - Henry Spradley

1880 Census - Henry Spradley

Civil War Pension - Henry Spradley

After this, I decided it made sense to see how much I could research on Spradley in the Dickinson archives since he was an employee. I ended up finding a full image of him in the digital photo collections! There are two practically identical images of him as part of the janitorial staff. The back of the photo cards says that they were a “gift of the estate of James Henry Baker,” and there is reference to “Uncle” Henry. The back also identifies these photos as taken in 1893. Both of these photos are courtesy of the Dickinson College archives, of which the were in a separate folder for Henry Spradley.

Henry Spradley - 1893

Henry Spradley - 1893

From there, I tried to research past Dickinsonian articles and Microcosms from between 1895-1898 to see if they mentioned his death. Unfortunately, I have found nothing in either of these so far. One of the archivists did tip me off to a book published by the alumni of 1870 ( Book CN is DC 378.748) that contained pictures of African American janitors. It looks as though these janitors or stewards pictures were taken from just before Henry Spradley would have been involved. However, one of these men in this book was Robert Young, who was listed as a pall bearer at Spradley’s funeral. Therefore I put his story below, also courtesty of the Dickinson archives.

Robert Young - Class of 1870 Alumni Book

Finally, I did a little more research back at CCHS to see if I could find more on Spradley there. In the Index of Church and Cemetery Records “Shat – Stew”, I found the birth and death record of “Henry Spradley (black).” This confirmed again that his birth date was in 1830 and his death date 1897. I had the source of this, Carlisle Burial Records from 1894 – 1905, pulled to find the actual record. On page 56, volume 1, I had his record scanned, courtesy of CCHS. Henry Spradley is the bottom line in all the pictures below.

Henry Spradley - Burial Record

Henry Spradley - Burial Record

Henry Spradley - Burial Record

Henry Spradley - Burial Record

This document tells a good amount of information that I wasn’t aware of yet. For example, he had been sick for 14 weeks and eventually died of heart failure. It says he had been a resident in Carlisle for 34 years and gives the city where he was born in as well.

So this is so far the story I have of Henry W. Spradley, the African American Civil War Veteran of Company G, 24th United States Colored Troops, who is buried in the former Lincoln Cemetery.

I wanted to look into a number of primary documents to get as much information on these soldiers as I could. First, I have a number of newspapers from the Lincoln Cemetery dropfile at CCHS. They cover the discussion and protest of the cemetery/park in the early 1970’s. They also explain that a protest was formed not because of the removal of the headstones, like we might think, but because a park took away possible homes for African Americans.

Evening Sentinel 1971 - September 10

Evening Sentinel 1971 - September 10

Evening Sentinel 1971 - Oct 1

Evening Sentinel 1971 - Oct 1

Evening Sentinel 1971 - Nov 18

Evening Sentinel 1971 - Nov 18

These newspapers were key in understanding how the town was responding to the cemetery turned park and understanding what the issues around it were. I was actually really surprised that the protests were not about getting rid of the African American history. But I learned over this project that the graveyard had been used for a long time as a place for children to run around and play. Also that it was fairly eroded and run down by the 1970’s. Still, as a historian, I still hope to find more reports of people upset by the loss of history.

Next, I looked into the minutes of the Borough of Carlisle Council, which were also in the Lincoln Cemetery dropfile. The minutes talk about the creation of “James Young Memorial Park.” I did not research much into this name or into how the area got the name “Hope

Borough of Carlisle Minutes

Station” as it is today, but I would like to. The minutes describe how Reuben Smitley, superintendent of the Carlisle Parks and Recreation Board started talking about the park in early September, 1971. Eventually, they called for a public meeting, which was attended by 20 members of the community. I was really confused within the meetings at how Smitley seemingly resigned in the minutes one day, then was still in the same position for all the rest of the minutes. Nevertheless, the minutes below go well with the newspapers above in constructing a timeline of events in 1971. I uploaded the minutes I thought were relevant from the dropfile at CCHS.

Borough of Carlisle Minutes

Borough of Carlisle Minutes

Borough of Carlisle Minutes

Lastly, I wanted to post some of the burial records I found for the soldiers at Lincoln Cemetery. While looking at the Cumberland County Courthouse website, I tried searching their archives for records on Lincoln Cemetery. This linked me to CCHS, saying that there should be records with the “Veterans Grave Registry of Cumberland County.” There were also supposed to be records within the “Deaths and Miscellaneous Register Almshouse.” The later includes deaths of blacks and whites and if they were claimed by family, their race, their name, when they died, and for some, where they were buried. However, none of these seemed to relate to Lincoln Cemetery. The Veterans Grave Registry at CCHS turned up great results! There were seven pages of burial records for the veterans at Lincoln cemetery. Information included their name, regiment, section, cemetery, street location of cemetery, grave number and even the type of headstone material. I have included below a few of the pictures I took of the document, once again, courtesy of CCHS.

Bolden, Bush and Cephas

Fisher, Fisher and Howard

Lane, McFarland, and McFarland

These seven pages of records open up a lot areas for research. I could use them to research the time of service of these veterans and explain what their units did during that time. I could analyze the different materials of gravestones and symbols sketched into them too. One of things that really caught my eye is how they are all reported by individuals, which really makes me want to research into who submitted the information. In fact, I would love to do that for most of my materials if I could. These primary documents open way more questions than closing in on answers, which is what I would expect.

To try to research efficiently with microfilm, I assembled the list of soldiers at Lincoln Cemetery of whom I knew their death dates. I figured that when people die, especially veterans, newspapers will often post a brief biography about their life or at least some aspect of their story. I assembled this list below of death dates from Cavenagh’s headstone writings.

• James O Williams – October 31^st, 1865
• Sgt. Robert A Rondel – February 24^th, 1890
• Nathaniel J. Stubbs – December 18^th, 1892
• John G. Peck – September 25, 1895
• George W. Jackson – July 24^th, 1896
• Henry W. Spradley – April 9^th, 1897
• James Welcome – April 17^th, 1898
• Alexander Washington – November 22^nd, 1900

I then started going through the microfilm of the Carlisle Herald, on microfilm at Widner-Spahr library. Basically, I decided I would look from one day before the death to three weeks after the death for any mention of the names. I know this is not an exhaustive study, but this was the most efficient way for time constraints.

First off, I did not have time to look into James Williams. Looking through microfilm for Rondel, Welcome, and Stubbs, I could not find anything for this newspaper. Obviously there might be more on them in another newspaper. However, when searching through 1882-1885 on Reel 42, I found two newspaper entries that mentioned William Cephas, Dennie Bush, R. B. Howard, and Geo. Fisher. It encouraged people to make sure Veterans gravestones were ordered and that no soldier was overlooked.

Carlisle Herald 1882 - May 8th

Below this, I have two more brief articles I found about the headstones. What I eventually realized was that the town was trying to get all of these headstones in place before May 30th, which was decoration day for the grave sties.

Carlisle Herald 1882 - May 25th

Carlisle Herald 1882 - June 8th

When I looked at microfilm reels for John Peck, I found one article as well. It explains that the A.M.E. church would burry him at 2pm the next day, which was the normal church and time from what I researched. I heard that John Peck was a prominent abolitionist, and this is something I would like to look into at CCHS more. This article gave me more confidence in that since they mentioned he was prominent in the community.

Carlisle Herald 1895 - September 25th

I was able to find an article about Alexander Washington as well. It tells a little about the different places where he lived, how old he was and when he died. It also makes it clear that he was buried in the cemetery off of North Pitt street, confirming that he was in Lincoln Cemetery.

Carlisle Herald 1900 - November 26th

In addition to these articles, I stumbled upon a few other African Americans buried around this time period, such as Emma Jackson and Relliford Jackson. The later is very interesting because it says that Jackson was an African American who fought in the Civil War and then moved to Carlisle. When he died, they wrote that he was buried in the “colored graveyard.” Which at this point, should be Lincoln and not Union Cemetery. So it’s very possible with some further research that I could prove another black veteran is buried there.

Carlisle Herald 1892 - December 29th

I also found one more article that could be a big lead for future research. It explains that “Prof. Troy” one night hosted a night of images of local black soldier pictures at A.M.E. I may have interpreted panorama wrong, but I really hoped to look into this article further.

Carlisle Herald 1895 - June 24th

Finally, I found multiple articles on Henry Spradley, who I will elaborate on later in a separate post. I really think that microfilm is the way to go for this research. If I had time to go through all the Carlisle newspapers and read them column after column, it would be possible to really piece together some of this history.

Images were always the ultimate goal throughout my research of Lincoln Cemetery. While later I would find some images in the Dickinson Archives, I did my primary image research at the Cumberland County Historical Society.

I started by finding a image collection on Lincoln Cemetery that was part of their image collections. It is labeled Lincoln Cemetery “Jim Bradley Photos.”

George Lane Headstone - Lincoln Cemetery

The folder contained three pictures from a photographer named Jim Bradley, each taken on November 5th, 1971. This was right before the headstones were voted to be removed for good. I later verified the picture of George Lane as definitely buried there, even though his name doesn’t appear on the lists. I have his burial record that I will publish in another post. The second picture is more of a landscape image of the cemetery. In the third picture, which I did not publish, it is the same landscape, but with Reuben Smitley standing by the graves. Smitley was superintendent of the Calisle Parks and recreation board and that image is also available at CCHS.

Lincoln Cemetery - 1971

In a Lincoln Cemetery dropfile at CCHS, I also found the maps that I said that Cavenagh had mentioned and Aaron Feldman-Grosse and Donald Koide had published in CCHS. The maps explain how the known gravestones were distributed around Lincoln Park, how the park is positioned on Pitt and Penn St., and the designs that Koide and Feldman came up with to recommend for landscaping. It is unclear in my research of which maps were made by Cavenagh and which ones by Feldman. Though I hope to figure that out in the near future. There is also a map that shows how the park is laid out today in path form.

The two maps on the bottoms should be the map that was attached to Susan Cavenagh’s appendix. It is what Feldman based their concepts off of above. This map was also found in the same dropfile and shows where the graves were all position with circle markers which can be used in concert with the grave listings above.

Lincoln Cemetery Concepts

Lincoln Cemetery Concepts

Lincoln Cemetery Concepts

Lincoln Cemetery Concepts

Susan Cavenagh's Gravestone Ma

Susan Cavenagh's Gravestone Map

Jonas Kees

Lastly, I went to the two photo archivists at CCHS and asked for help in researching for any photos on either Lincoln cemetery or black Veterans from Carlisle in general. Unfortunately, they said that they only have about 30,000 or so of their 500,000 photos on their searchable database. Nevertheless, the three of us sat there with my laptop list of soldiers and we all entered search after search for a possible hit. We exhausted the list, but found some possible leads on Richard Howard and John Peck that I did not have time to explore into.

The archivist did help me pull an image list of African American pictures from around the civil war time. One really helpful image collection was the “Johnson Collection,” which contained the above image of Jonas Kees. The collection would be great for others to look into if they want photos of African Americans during this period. The whole file was donated by a family and claims that Kees lived in Carlisle. However, once again, I need to do more research to find out what his background story is.

I know that Kees was not on my list for those in Lincoln Cemetery, but there were many black soldiers buried at Lincoln that were unknown and at Union Cemetery that I did not do very much research into. As of now, that wraps up my image research at CCHS, until I can go back after spring break.

In my first manuscript research trip to the Dickinson Archives, I found four different texts that I hoped would provide secondary source or background information on Lincoln Cemetery or any of the soldier buried there. I found them by searching for many of the same terms I used to find non-archive secondary source, but here I also researched into Susan Cavenagh to explore what other texts she had written. I used the following four archive texts:

• Cavenagh, Susan. Blacks in Carlisle, 1870-1880. Dickinsoniana Books, 1978. (Honors History 1978 C379b)
• Cavenagh, Susan Savage. The Black Experience in Carlisle, 1880. Dickinsoniana Books, 1976. (Essays History 1976 C379b)
• Valanos, Vicky. Social Mobility of Blacks in Carlisle. Dickinsoniana Books, 1981. (Essays History 1981 V136s)
• Lindbuchler, Ryan L. Gone But Not Forgotten: Civil War Veterans of Northeastern Pennsylvania. Luzerne County Historical Society, 2001.

Lindbuchler’s book lists dozens of Civil War veteran cemeteries and expresses a mission to tell the stories of soldiers so they are not forgotten. Unfortunately, black veterans must be the ones that are gone and forgotten, because Lindbuchler’s book has no mention of African American veterans or cemeteries.

Susan Cavenagh’s “Blacks in Carlisle, 1870-1880,” is actually a great tool for historians of this time period. She analyzed how other historians reconstructed African American time periods by using court records, census data, newspapers, tax records, birth/death certificates and similar sources. Then she attempted to model this in a quantitative way. While she unfortunately does not annex any of the records she found other than the census, her census data is staggering. She took all of the 1870 and 1880 data and transcribed the writing for all African Americans in Carlisle. The majority of her work is quantitative SPSS outputs, which compares formerly southern blacks in Carlisle to northern blacks, and attempts to figure out who was better off.

Vicky Valanos’s “Social Mobility of Blacks in Carlisle” is an essay that looked at how Cavenagh analyzed the 1870 and 1880 Census, and tried to do a small analysis of this for 1900. For both of these works, I am glad I read them, but I know that I can find census records on ancestry. Cavenagh does make them much more legible. I also used Cavenagh’s suggestion in her paper to look at the Carlisle Herald and the Carlisle Valley Sentinel for more information.

Lastly, I looked at Susan Cavenagh’s “The Black Experience in Carlisle 1880.” I knew she had recorded the gravestone names at Lincoln Cemetery, but her honors thesis had not included mention of this at all. I hoped she hadn’t just left it out. Luckily I found these three pages at the end of her essay on African Americans in 1880.

These three pages were great for my research and explained why Cavenagh was connected to the gravestone research. It also explained how she had researched in the Cumberland County Courthouse, the existence of maps, and the existence of burial records.

One of the big mysteries of her research was a missing appendix at the end of her essay. After her first appendix and bibliography it said on the last page, “Appendix #2. Maps Showing Geographic Distribution of Sample, Selected Gravestones.” I sat with the archivists theorizing about where the maps could be, whether they could be in another collection or whether they were lost for good. I would later discover than these were just the same maps I had found at CCHS, but not until I had talked with about four archivists. Malinda Triller emailed CCHS society for me while I contacted the Cumberland Country Courthouse archivist. Both were extremely helpful.

The manuscript search gave me a little more background to my story and let me know how far Cavenagh had researched into it as well. This allowed me to see what had been done and what needed to be expanded upon.

By far, my search for online newspapers has been the most challenge aspect of this research process. I began my search through the 19th Century Newspapers database. Here I first searched for “Carlisle” with the date range of 1860-1865. I quickly realized that this was much too broad. By changing my search to “Carlisle, Pennsylvania” and to “Carlisle Troops” and limiting the time from to 1861-1863, was able to find article describing the Confederate advance in Pennsylvania. However, these articles did not directly address my research topic, so I was forced to try again.

Since my topic incorporates both soldiers and the home front, I tried searching for the

Image Courtesy of the 19th Century Newspapers Database.

Sanitary Commission. Here I found an July 30, 1861 article about the Sanitary Commission in Washington from the North American and United States Gazette. This article calls for donations of  “Ice…Wine and Pure Spirits, Sheets and Sheeting, Flannel and Toweling, Mosquito Netting” to the Washington DC Sanitary Commission. This article could be useful for a side-by-side comparison to articles in Carlisle newspapers discussing the Sanitary Commission or just generally requesting supplies to be sent to the front.

Following in this new vein, I next searched for sewing machines and viewed only the advertisement results. In the Carlisle newspapers I had seen many advertisements for sewing machines, mourning clothes, and all sorts of domestic items. Therefore, an interesting way to learn about the home front could be to compare the goods marketed at women in different

Image Courtesy of the 19th Century Newspapers Database.

areas. From this search I found many advertisements for sewing machines including this January 3, 1862 article from the Lowell Citizen and Daily News. This article champions the New England Family Sewing Machine as “perfect in its motion, and durable in its parts,” stating that it is “better adapted to meet the wants of every Family than any other machine.”

For my final article, I used the Civil War Era Database. I searched for “Carlisle” and the “36th Pennsylvania,” but did not find anything interesting. However, when I searched for the “Pennsylvania Reserves” I found a pamphlet from the U. S. Sanitary Commission, An appeal to the people of Pennsylvania for the sick and wounded soldiers. This pamphlet calls civilians, ” who are safe at home, surrounded by all the comforts of domestic life” to think about the soldiers and to volunteer for and contribute to the Sanitary Commission (pg. 2). This pamphlet, in conjunction with newspaper articles such as the one above, gives interesting insight into how fundraising was conducted during the Civil War. These articles and this pamphlet would be useful to elaborate on the national agencies  and companies developed during he war, and how they were presented to and how they related to those at home.

Over the last few weeks, I went back and forth between database, photos, secondary sources, microfilm and contacts. However, for simplicities sake, I will present what I found in these categories, starting with databases

After looking at Susan Cavenagh’s and then Aaron Feldman-Grosse and Don Koide’s list of soldiers buried at Lincoln Cemetery, I went and compared the list to at the Cumberland Civil War site. As time would go on, I would compare a number of lists to each other as well. However, knowing the regiment number for most and time of death for some, I went to The American Civil War Research Database and tried to see if I could look up every soldier on the list.

I ended up finding 23 of the Veterans on the site, which contains information such as their regiment, rank, hometown, biographical info, enlistment and discharge information. It also lists the source, of which the site seems primary summarizing from History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-1865 and Massachusetts Soldiers, Sailors and Marines in the Civil War. I will link all of these on my post where I compile all of the soldiers names. From this list, I asked myself which soldiers were most likely to have enough information on them to help create a story and which were the most relevant.

I chose to try and focus on George Fisher, James H. Alexander, Robert Howard, David McFarland, and Harrison Smith. Each has something specific, such as where they resided, were wounded or enlisted that would make it easier to research them.

Then I went through a long and at times frustrating database search. I used my strategy to research these five first, but when nothing turned up, I usually entered every other name on the list. Other strategies I used were just using the last name, entering the regiment number, looking up the training camp, and searching for their name and then colored/black/African American or Carlisle. I looked at the following databases and websites: American Civil War: Letters and Diaries, CumberlandCountyCivilWar.com, 19th Century Newspapers, Accessible Archives, Ancestry.com, battleofolustee.org, masshist.org, Civil War Era, pacivilwar.com, and American Periodicals Series Online. I also quickly looked at some like American National Biography and American Memory Project, but they were very unlikely to turn up results on mostly unknown soldiers and with so little time.

On American Civil War: Letters and Diaries, I used the option in the search to limit results by race. Out of these, there was a James Williams and J. Berry, two possible ones from my list. The James Williams diary was definitely not a match, since the diary mentions this Williams living past his death date on the tombstone Cavenagh recorded. I ruled out the J. Berry letter too from it’s lack of information and the fact that he was from North Carolina. If I had records that he moved to NC, then it would be worth coming back to I guess.

I searched 19th Century newspapers for a long time, but found very few results. One that might have some legitimacy was about David Jackson, who is in an article about slave catchers in the Fredrick Douglass papers. The article lists David Jackson as colored and the other subject as from Carlisle, but not necessarily Jackson. Therefore, I am still reserved on whether it is really Jackson from Lincoln Cemetery, since the name is common. I also found a list of draft exemptions from Pennsylvania in 1865, which contained George Fisher, one of my main targets. But this did not even have a way to prove it was George Fisher from Carlisle or that he was black.

Accessible Archives has six African American newspapers that I looked in, with the closest being in Philadelphia. I found absolutely nothing here and was frustrated by the poor search engine. Words like “Carlisle,” and “USCT” came up with absolutely no results. And searching for a full name would bring up documents nowhere near what I was looking for.

I searched battleofolustee.org and masshist.org because they were about the Massachussetts 54th Infantry that George Fisher and Robert Howard were enlisted in. The former, if you go here, has links to about 20 African American soldier pictures from the 24th, as well as a few diaries and letters from officers. On masshist.org, if you search for “54th” you can see a number of entries on African American soldiers from the regiment. They have more photos available in their archives that are not online, but the ones online did not match with Fisher or Howard.

I did not find any matches for soldiers on my list at the Civil War Era database or any new information from the Pennsylvania Volunteers database (pacivilwar.com). My best database luck was on Ancestry.com. I would go back to this site for other soldiers, but I chose to focus on George Fisher to see if I could make a story out of him. I found his 1860 Census record, his enlistment and discharge papers, and his plaque information for the African American memorial.

George Fisher - 1860 Census

• From this, I was able to tell who he had lived with. I tried searching for Clara Piper and John Heck, the two other oldest people he lived with, but I found no other records of them on ancestry.

George Fisher - Military Service Records

• Information on databases I looked at says Fisher was wounded in June 1963 and discharged in June, but the record actually shows he was wounded in July 1963 and not fully sent home until June 1964.

Any other database records, I will just work into my overall posts. I thought Ancestry and American Civil War Research database were the most useful and worthwhile overall. The database search left me mostly thinking that local documents would be more worthwhile than filtering out all the national information.

Today March 10th I read through a book called Saber and Scapegoat by Mark Nesbitt. It is a book dedicated primarily to General Stuart that talks specifically about the general and a majority of the book focuses on the Gettysburg Campaign. I was able to locate a couple of interesting facts from the few paragraphs on the Confederate Occupation of Carlisle. 

The first piece of information is that General Ewell actually did pass through Carlisle. If you remember in one of my previous blog posts I stated that General Ewell had ordered his men to open fire on the town and was responsible for the shelling of Carlisle. Well that part is not true but Ewell definitely passed through because once he had left Union infantry under the command of General Smith came back into the town right before Stuart arrived. All of that previous information can be found on pages 87-88 of Mark Nesbitt’s book Saber and Scapegoat.

The next piece of information is on Stuart himself. He actually knew the area quite well having been there just a few years ago, 1859, to present a new design that he had created for the saber attachment. Most of his officers had been stationed here at some point in their military careers before the war as well. Finally Stuart’s wife Flora Cooke Stuart grew up here because her father Philip St. George Cooke was the commandant of the Barracks and Cavalry School from 1848 to 1852. Stuart and his men had been traveling for such a long time that his men were past the point of sheer exhaustion. He knew they needed food fast and panned to take Carlisle so he could supply his men. They came toward Carlisle by way of the Dillsburg road and arrived around dusk. He ordered the surrender of the town and the barracks but when the towns people and soldiers refused Stuart ordered his artillery to open fire. The exploding shells caused some of the officer quarters at the barracks and Cavalry School to ignite and they burned throughout the night. 

The route of General J.E.B. Stuart from page 63 of "Saber and Scapegoat". The black arrows on the right side of the page is the movement of General Stuart.

One of Lee’s adjutants Major Venable found Stuart and ordered him to get to Gettysburg after informing Stuart of the fighting. Stuart ordered General Fitzhugh Lee to stay in Carlisle and ordered General Wade Hampton to continue riding for about another ten miles toward Gettysburg. Stuart himself rode alone to report to General Lee. 

General Fitzhugh Lee, page 108 of "Saber and Scapegoat" from the U.S. Army Military History Institute and Americana Gallery. Fitzhugh Lee was left behind in Carlisle when Stuart was first informed to report to General Lee.

This book does contain a lot more information about the Gettysburg Campaign. It was a very helpful secondary source in finding out more about the campaign and Stuart’s involvement with it. He would eventually be blamed by some officers for the failure of the Gettysburg Campaign because of his attack on Carlisle and worrying more about raiding the enemy then looking out for the army.

Tonight March 9th I went to the archives again to try and learn more about John Keagy Stayman and more about the invasion of Carlisle from the newspaper The Press. I first began looking for information in Stayman just so I and all of you could understand who he was and why cared so much about Carlisle after the shelling and burning took place. Stayman was born in Cumberland Valley near Carlisle on September 28, 1823 and died in Baltimore, Md. on July 4, 1882. Stayman was the professor who wrote the letter to his friend Edgar after he had heard about what had happened. I have not been  able to locate any information on who his friend was. I have tried two separate year books that the archives houses but was not able to track him down. I did find out that though that Stayman did attend Dickinson College and graduated in 1841. He proceeded to become a professor here teaching Language, Philosophy, and English Literature. Here is a picture of Stayman from 1871.

John Keagy Stayman 1871. Courtesy of the Dickinson Archives.

The other information that I found tonight was from a newspaper published in Philadelphia called The Press. What I was able to find was a similar story as the one told by The Philadelphia Inquirer. The Press reported that General Knipe was on his way to Carlisle when his wagon train was attacked by Confederate forces. Knipe attempted to withdraw to Harrisburg during this engagement. It was then reported that this engagement was much closer to Mechanicsburg then Carlisle. During the night of July 1st citizens of Harrisburg lined the riverbank to listen to thundering of cannon fire that was heard in the direction of Carlisle. The firing had ceased by 12 P.M. Then the citizens could view a bright fire coming from that direction. They believed it to be the burning of General Lee’s headquarters at Dover in York County. By the following day they would learn the truth about what really happened.

I was able to locate this information by looking through the archives collection of newspapers that were read not just statewide and beyond but also in the Carlisle area as well. I plan on researching through two books that I own both of the Gettysburg to find more information on Carlisle’s involvement. One focuses more on General Longstreet and the Confederacy’s plan as a whole but might provide some information.  The other focuses primarily on General J.E.B. Stuart and his involvement with the Gettysburg Campaign.