With Civil War papers already a white plague, why add to the epidemic? The answer involves mention of another disease, local pride. But should we be proud or not? No one in a full 100 years has marshalled the facts of 1863, when the Confederate army rolled to the West Shore of the Susquehanna River.
An estimated 3,200 citizens of Cumberland County served in the military in the course of the Civil War. With the 150th anniversary of the Civil War upon us there is renewed interest in the war and the role Cumberland County citizens played during this crucial era of our nation's history.
John and Leo Faller were brothers from Carlisle Pa. who served in the same unit during the war. Their letters to family members provide excellent insight into the thoughts of a typical soldier.
The Carlisle Borough Charter claims that the First Lutheran Church began about 1765 when the German immigrants of Reformed and Lutheran church background worshiped together in a union church on South Hanover Street near South Street.1 In 1807, the church divided and the Lutherans built
With the 2011 issue of Cumberland County History, a new feature will appear in the Journal. The new feature will be an opportunity for our readers to learn more about the extensive and varied collections housed at the Cumberland County Historical Society in irs library, museum, and photo archives.
John Cantilion was a tall, handsome soldier when he stepped into Ordnance Sergeant Lewis Leffman's office at Fort Niagara. The old sergeant was somewhat of a legend in the Niagara area. He had fought with Wellington's Hanovian forces at Waterloo in 1815. Shortly after he joined the British army and shipped to Canada. His next assignment was to have been the disease-plagued islands in the south, so he arranged an early departure to Hancock Barracks, Sackets Harbor, New York, where he enlisted at twenty seven in the United States Army, 30 August 1829.
By the autumn of 1864, the editors of Harrisburg's daily Patriot and Union had written themselves into journalistic trouble. Their staunchly Democratic newspaper was read throughout the Commonwealth, but especially in Dauphin, Cumberland, and Perry counties. In its columns, they advocated a conciliatory approach toward the South. Then the Confederates raided Chambersburg, showed no bent for conciliation, burned the heart of the town.
An account of the occupation and shelling of the town of Carlisle by units of the Confederate Army ten days before was printed in the Carlisle American Volunteer on July 9, 1863, in the Carlisle Herald on the following day, July 10, and in the Carlisle American on July 15. The author was S. K. Donavin.
Born in France during the reign of King Louis Philippe, Peter Karlskind arrived in America in 1863, fought with the Irish Brigade during the Civil War and died in Cumberland County on or about New Year’s Day 1900.
Charles Henry Masland, founder of C. H. Masland & Sons, was born on December 15, 1841, in Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Along with his father and three of his brothers, he served in the Union Army in the Civil War.