GDG- Re: Local Gettysburg Troops

[dwmadison at comcast.net]

Thanks David for the information. 

I went to the library this evening and checked out Tucker's Lee and Longstreet at Gettysburg. As soon as I finshed Freeman's section on Gettysburg it will be the next book to read. 

The story about Jacob Hoke is really very interesting.

Dennis in Richmond

-------------- Original message -------------- 
From: "Smith, David [USA]" <smith_david_g at bah.com> 

> Esteemed GDG Member Contributes: 
> 
> 
> Message: 14 
> 
> Date: Tue, 02 Oct 2007 21:48:09 +0000 
> 
> From: dwmadison at comcast.net 
> 
> Subject: GDG- Local Gettysburg Troops 
> 
> I have a question about the men who lived in the Gettysburg area prior 
> to the battle and actually fought there. I know about the Welsy Culp 
> story. Are there any others who left writngs about their experiences and 
> what regiments they belonged to. 
> 
> Thanks 
> 
> Dennis 
> 
> 
> Dennis-- 
> 
> Almost all the leads I am going to give you are Confederate, which may 
> surprise you. One of the early chapters of Glenn Tucker's "Lee and 
> Longstreet at Gettysburg" contains a discussion of 2-3 or more 
> individuals with local ties in the armies. Most of them are Confederate 
> - his point is that the Confederate's did not make as good use of people 
> with local ties in their ranks as the Union did. I believe it is in the 
> chapter that discusses the flank march. If time permits, I will try and 
> look it up for you. 
> 
> There is also a case in Franklin County of an individual who joined the 
> Confederate Army and then returned in 1863. I think he helped with the 
> plundering; at any rate, when the Confederate Army withdrew, apparently 
> they took his mother along, because of fears for her safety. I would 
> have to look through my notes to find the obscure source where I plucked 
> that one out. But it is worth noting that this family came from 
> Missouri, that divided state, in 1859 or 1860, so they didn't have 
> strong ties in the area. 
> 
> Also, Chris Keller's article "Galvanized Confederates" in William 
> Blair's *Making and Re-making Pennsylvania's Civil War* (or something 
> close to that) has other examples of Pennsylvanians who fought for the 
> Confederacy - many, but not all of them from the Philadelphia area. I 
> went to grad school with Chris - warning - his statistics about how many 
> galvanized Confederates there were is probably off, because he does a 
> straight line extrapolation, while Pennsylvania, as a border state 
> probably had many more than say, Maine. Chris's opening story, though, 
> does a good job in capturing the anguish of the family - the father 
> tries to talk the son out of his service when it becomes clear he will 
> be heading to a POW camp. 
> 
> One of my favorite stories regarding this divided border area doesn't 
> involve soldiers at all. According to Jacob Hoke, some enterprising 
> individual ran around Franklin County and bought up all the Confederate 
> money that CSA soldiers spent during the Gettysburg invasion that he 
> could find. Of course,he could get it at a huge discount because it was 
> worth nothing in the North. Then HE MOVED to the Shenandoah Valley and 
> bought himself a nice farm and some land with all that Confederate 
> money! That's using arbitrage and foreign exchange rates to your 
> advantage! 
> 
> David 
> 
> 
> ---------------------------------------------------------------- 
> You may unsubscribe by going to 
> http://mailman.arthes.com/mailman/listinfo/gettysburg 
> 
> You can add yourself to the GDG map at: 
> http://www.frappr.com/gettysburgdiscussiongroup 
> 
> View archived posts from May 2004 - present at 
> http://mailman.arthes.com/pipermail/gettysburg/