By Erica Uszak ’22
War on the Doorstep: Civilians of Gettysburg
By late June of 1863, alarms warning of approaching Confederate forces were nothing new for the 2,400 residents of Gettysburg. Living just ten miles from the Mason-Dixon line, small-scale raids, kidnappings of freed-people, and rumors of an imminent clash between the two great armies had long plagued the borough and its surrounding community. Nevertheless, none of these events could prepare Gettysburgians for the ferocious 3-day fight between 165,000 soldiers in early July of that year that would transform the lives and lands of Gettysburg’s civilians forever. However, these civilians’ experiences were not monolithic; while some were defined by tragedy and blight, others included remarkable episodes of perseverance, successful pragmatism, and creative profiteering. This blog series profiles the lives of diverse Gettysburgians who were forced to confront the war at their very doorsteps, each on their own terms, whose stories speak to the kaleidoscope of experiences of civilians struggling to survive, and thrive, along the Pennsylvania-Maryland border during the Civil War.
The Warfields were an African American family who evacuated before the Battle of Gettysburg began. Their story reminds us of the unique dangers that the battle posed to the African American community, such as Confederate kidnappers who trafficked many free blacks into slavery, as well as the possibility of physical abuse and even death if they dared to remain in Gettysburg. When the Warfields returned to their farm, they confronted the graves of Confederate and Union soldiers in their yard, the destruction of their home, and the loss of their crops and animals. Thus, for the Warfields, the merciful end of the battle on July 3, 1863 did not bring the conclusion of their troubles in Gettysburg, but rather ushered in a new set of challenges in recovering what they had lost.
The Warfield family had moved to Gettysburg between October 1861 and October 1862. Their house had been built in 1845, and by the time of the battle, the family had constructed a blacksmith shop, a barn, and an orchard on their thirteen acres, upon which they also grew wheat and corn. The head of the household, James Warfield, was born in Maryland in either 1819 or 1821 and married a woman named Eliza. James was a farmer as well as a blacksmith. From the 1860 census, it appears that he and Eliza had six children when they lived in Uniontown, Maryland, but by 1863, a few of them may have moved away. It is also uncertain whether Eliza was present in Gettysburg in 1863.
According to the 1860 census, James Warfield was a man of modest means, with his real estate valued at $600 and his personal estate at $200. However, the 1870 census shows that, seven years after the battle, he still had four young daughters in Gettysburg to look after: Anna Louisa (also shown in the 1870 census as Ann Louisa), Martha Ellen, Mary Alice, and Sarah Jane. (Most of the daughters had been born in Maryland, except the youngest, Sarah Jane). James Warfield was literate and recognized the importance of education for his children, ensuring that his three youngest daughters had attended school by 1870.
Gettysburg was a small town in 1863 with a little more than 2,000 residents, many of whom worked as farmers like the Warfields or in a variety of middle and lower class occupations. However, it was somewhat unusual that an African American man such as James was a self-sufficient farmer, as historian Margaret Creighton notes that “many black men worked without a named skill, and labored for others as a means to credit or pay” in Gettysburg. James certainly felt proud of his success as a farmer and blacksmith and the house that he had procured, even without the skills of reading and writing. A white family, the Sherfys, lived close by the Warfields. The Sherfys were pacifists, belonged to the Church of the Brethren, and the patriarch, Joseph Sherfy, served as the reverend of the church. The two families must have formed some sort of working relationship with each other, as Raphael Sherfy later became the executor of James Warfield’s will and oversaw the sale of the Warfields’ house after James’s death.
There is no question that James Warfield worried about his, and especially his young daughters’ safety when he heard news of the nearby Confederate army. In October of 1862, Confederate cavalry under J.E.B. Stuart had come as close as four miles away from Gettysburg, no doubt bringing terror to the residents. In mid-June of 1863, the governor of Pennsylvania called for Gettysburgians to harvest their crops and hide their valuables or transfer them elsewhere, and one Union general, Darius Couch, warned the local residents to seek immediate shelter. People had sounded the false alarms of Confederate invasion before, but James must have felt the unique urgency of this particular situation as more people began to evacuate the area. Like many of his fellow townsfolk, James may have evacuated his family on previous occasions as a precaution. However, the increasingly panicked rumors unsettled James to the point where he felt he needed to take his family away from the danger.
The exact date of when James left remains unclear—he may have left in late June, when many others began to evacuate, or maybe as late as July 1, when he heard the sound of the guns north of town. Even so, up until the end of June, it was uncertain where both armies stood and the routes the Warfields could safely take to avoid an encounter with Confederates. Perhaps James reached out to other African American families in the area to travel together. He likely packed the bare necessities that they could take with them, like food and clothing, as well any precious items they could carry that James feared might be destroyed. The uncertainty and terror of the situation was undoubtedly maddening, as James had no idea of when—or if—the family could return. Regardless, James’s decision to evacuate proved to be a wise move, as his house would eventually sit squarely within the major Confederate battle lines.
Many African Americans moved further north and east (and elsewhere) to avoid the Confederate army, including places like Harrisburg and even as far as Philadelphia. Many African Americans also evacuated to York and Carlisle, and other places within 30 miles or so of Gettysburg. Although we don’t know the exact of number of black kidnappings nor the fate of those taken, civilian accounts of the battle reveal that the Confederate army seized a number of African American civilians to be taken south into slavery. One African American resident was brutally attacked and mutilated by Confederate soldiers and left to suffer a painful death when he refused to go with them any further. Certainly James Warfield feared a similar attack by the Confederates and what might become of his young daughters–the eldest of whom was eight years old and the youngest of whom merely about one year old. James also likely wondered (with no small amount of horror) what would happen if the Confederates won the battle, and what such a victory ultimately would mean for him, his family, and his home. A return to Maryland was even less secure than remaining in Gettysburg. Where would they go? What would a Union defeat meant for the country?
During the battle, it is likely that Confederate soldiers used the Warfield’s house for shelter; however, the farm and it came under fire on the second day of the battle. At one point, Alabama troops clashed with the 1st United States Sharpshooters and the 3rd Maine around the Pitzer Woods area near the Warfield farm, a fight which ended in the retreat of the U.S. skirmishers. When James returned to his property a few days after the battle, he found it much changed and significantly damaged. He summoned Abraham Flenner, a fellow (white) farmer of Adams County, who helped him assess the value of the damage to his property. While James and his family had survived and the U.S. army had won a costly, but critical victory, one can imagine his anguish at seeing his modest abode in ruin, the farm and blacksmith shop—his entire livelihood that supported his large family and for which he had worked so hard—in shambles. The house itself was damaged, his furniture ruined, his fences torn down, his bushels of corn and wheat destroyed, and his pigs and cattle missing. An unwanted graveyard now pock-marked his farm, with at least thirteen Confederates and five U.S. soldiers buried there upon it. After overcoming his shock, James’s mind likely turned to how he might possibly rebuild his livelihood, what to do with his farm, and whether anyone, including the state and federal government, would help him recover what he had lost.
The Warfields were not alone in their struggle. Numerous Gettysburg farm families found themselves in similar situations, but it is unclear to the extent that the community came together to help them. According to Margaret Creighton, African Americans in the community seemingly were left to fend for themselves when repairing damages to their property. However, she also notes that several African Americans earned money by washing the bloodied uniforms of the dead and wounded to be reused, and that they fixed damages to white families’ properties, although it is unclear as to the amount of compensation they received for either. Did James Warfield himself ever turn to his neighbors for help? His relatives? Would his neighbors refuse to help an African American family? As mentioned previously, James had at least one good relationship with his white neighbors, the Sherfy family. The Sherfys also left their farm early on the morning of July 2 and returned July 6 to ruin and destruction. Raphael Sherfy, as mentioned earlier, later became the executor of James Warfield’s will, so it is possible that the Warfields and the Sherfys turned to each other for help in the battle’s aftermath, perhaps working to rebuild each other’s properties and replant their fields.
A year after the battle, the house and property remained a thorn in James’s side as he struggled over what to do with it. He tried to sell the property in 1864, but no one was interested. Like many other unfortunate families, especially other African Americans who evacuated before the battle, the Warfield family eventually left Gettysburg sometime in 1864 or 1865 and shifted their place of residence to nearby Cashtown, Pennsylvania. The Warfields had to settle with a rotating lease of the Gettysburg farm for income, as no one claimed interest in buying it as a permanent residence.
In 1868, the Pennsylvania state government passed a law allowing for compensation for those “whose property was damaged, destroyed, or appropriated for the public service” during the war. Warfield filed a claim that year, but it was not until the Pennsylvania government passed another act in May 1871 that they approved Warfield’s claim of property damage. In total, James applied for $516 worth of property damage–$155 for the loss of his pigs, cattle, and furniture and $361 for real estate damage to cover the loss of 50 bushels of wheat, 60 bushels of corn, fences and crops, and general damage to the house. $516 was a valuable sum in 1868—in today’s dollars (2021), that amount equals almost $10,000.
The Pennsylvania government did not grant James Warfield the full amount of $516, but awarded him $410 in November of 1871, based upon the act passed earlier that May. Many people who filed never received anything, and the slow-moving process likely felt discouraging to James. But after eight years of persistence, James earned the financial compensation that he desperately deserved, having lost so much in the battle. He had overcome many obstacles to become a successful, independent farmer and blacksmith, and, despite the necessity, perhaps felt frustrated about having to depend on the state government for financial support. He also likely reflected upon his ironic, bad fortune that his hard-earned self-sufficiency and independence in a free state had ultimately been destroyed largely by Confederate soldiers, of all people.
James was one of many Gettysburgians to file for state compensation. In fact, so numerous were the locals’ complaints about their damages and losses that they aroused the frustration and scorn of Union artillery officer Colonel Charles S. Wainwright, who scoffed that the Gettysburg residents had “damned themselves [ with their selfishness] with a disgrace that can never be washed out.” Wainwright scorned, “Instead of helping us, they were coming in shoals with their petty complaints of damages.” For the Warfields, as for so many, the damage that their house and property sustained was far from petty. They had put their life’s work into buying the house, cultivating a farm of their own, and running a successful blacksmith business—all of which they were forced to walk away from. And unlike the majority of their white neighbors, they had risked their lives in doing so.
James died in 1875, and after his death, the house was sold to a Frank H. Echenrode (or Eckenrode). Interestingly, it appears that, despite the unexpected devastation of the war years, James not only managed to recover some of his financial losses by 1870, but that he actually increased his wealth, as the federal census shows that he had $1,700 worth of real estate and $500 of personal estate. He resumed working as a blacksmith and farmer in Cumberland Township.
The National Park Service has worked for the past two years to restore the Warfield house to what it would have looked like in 1863. The interior of the house was presented to the public for the first time in 2021, and the house is open for visitation during certain occasions. Park staff have removed the modern additions, post-war vegetation, and stabilized the existing historic parts of the house. The park staff also worked on restoring the roofline for the original 1 ½ story house, the historic windows, and other features on the interior and outside portions of the house. Visitors can see the original floor, stone masonry, wall beams, bricks, and the house’s overall structure when they step inside. Standing outside the Warfield house, looking at Southern monuments on nearby Confederate Avenue, a sharp contrast exists between the triumphant picture of Confederate soldiers fighting to preserve the system of slavery against the story of a free African American family that toiled long and hard to earn their own house and property, only to have their home and farm destroyed by a battle that ultimately helped to save the Union. The Warfields’ story and restored home reminds visitors of how close the Confederate army came to threatening not only the family’s lives and freedom, but also their livelihoods. Despite their ultimate relocation to Cashtown, the Warfield home also attests to the Warfields’ remarkable resilience to recover and rebuild in the aftermath of the battle that helped to determine the future of four million of their fellow African Americans in bondage.
