In the summer of 1863, the Cumberland Valley was awash in fear and excitement as General Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia came northward, culminating in the Battle of Gettysburg on July 1st, 2nd and 3rd. Much has been written since then, 'indeed perhaps too much- by one estimate more than 5000 books and articles have been written about the Gettysburg Campaign of June and July 1863. Historian Noah Andre Trudeau said that writing about Gettysburg is a cottage industry and each author now begins by apologizing for "adding to the congestion of so many previous studies on the subject." Gentle reader, I too apologize, yet nonetheless hope for your indulgence.
What follows is not a grand story of the Gettysburg Campaign. Rather, this article briefly examines a small component of the drama as it played out in the far corner of southwestern Cumberland County: the movement of troops through William Watt's Iron Works, comprised of Pine Grove Furnace and nearby Laurel Forge. This part of the South Mountains was not in the main path of the huge armies maneuvering in Pennsylvania. Nonetheless, Union militia are documented to have passed through the iron works. Evidence concerning Confederates is less dear - very probably the rebels did not make it to Pine Grove Furnace.
Confederates at Pine Grove Furnace before the Battle of Gettysburg?
In late June, the Confederate army was spread across south-central Pennsylvania, with the main force extending up the Cumberland Valley from Chambersburg to Shippensburg and Carlisle and beyond. They then converged to fight the Battle of Gettysburg.
It is sometimes stated that both Northern and Southern soldiers passed through Pine Grove Furnace. A rather typical comment in a 1954 newspaper article: "The spot was visited by troops of both armies in the Civil War. ... " One near-contemporary writer made a very specific statement that a few Confederates moved due south out of the Cumberland Valley and across the South Mountains all the way to Pine Grove Furnace, while on their way to Gettysburg. This account was written less than 30 years after the battle by Captain James Thomas Long, who had served elsewhere at the time as a lieutenant in the First Pennsylvania Cavalry, Pennsylvania Volunteers. Long claimed that on June 30th elements of the Confederate Third Corps moved south from Newville:
General Pender's division of Hill's corps was sent from Newville by way of Pine Grove Furnace, on the Newville and Mummasburg road, reaching a point on the latter ten miles northwest of Gettysburg. He stopped for the night with four brigades, as follows: Thomas', Lane's, Scales' and McGowen's.
The "Newville and Mummasburg road" could refer to modern Route 233 from Newville to Pine Grove Furnace; then modern Bendersville Road south from the furnace across Piney Mountain Ridge toward Bendersville and Arendtsville. Beyond Arendtsville is the hamlet of Mummasburg, located just to the northwest of Gettysburg. These roads all existed in 1863, and are shown on the 1858 Bridgens map of Cumberland County.
There is a significant problem with this account. All other sources say that Pender's Division was with the rest of the Confederate Third Corps near Chambersburg, not further north, and specify the Division moved along what is now Route 30 to Cashtown and Gettysburg. Is the book totally incorrect, or merely giving wrong unit names to some other troops at Newville?
This paper is a by-product resulting from research completed for "Lincoln Cemetery- the Story Down Under" a paper published in October 2011. After finding many articles about the "colored" G.A.R. Post in the local newspaper as part of that research, it seemed obvious that the story of this fine organization needed to be told.