When War Passed This Way

When War Passed This Way is an excellent example of regional history and how it can relate to national events. This book will long remain the authoritative work on the Civil War along the Pennsylvania-Maryland border.

Invasion scares; unruly militia; horse thieves; guerrilla raids; full scale invasion; destruction of crops, railroads and towns; plundering of homes, shops and livestock; the death of friend, foe, stranger and loved one. All this and more was experienced by the people of the Cumberland Valley and Pennsylvania border between 1861 and 1865.

When the authors started the research for this work they expected to produce a short booklet on Greencastle in the Civil War. Instead, what evolved after five years of work spanning the country from Rhode Island to Michigan and from Maryland to Texas, is a book that provides a microcosmic view of events that affected much of Southern Pennsylvania and Western Maryland.

Special attention is given the major military operations, including Patterson’s campaign in 1861; the Confederate invasion of Maryland the following year, previously unpublished accounts of the Gettysburg Campaign, including Ulric Dahlgren’s Raid and the Confederate retreat; and the Burning of Chambersburg in 1864. Along with the combat related aspects of the story, accounts of home front activities combine to provide one of the most in-depth, yet readable accounts of this tragic period of America’s history.

Period newspapers, including wartime issues of Greencastle’s Pilot, diaries, letters church and cemetery records, regimental histories and official military reports provide the foundation for a story that weaves its way from the pre-war years, through the four-year conflict and on into the Twentieth Century and the demise of the GAR and death of the area’s only remaining Union veteran.