Tag: Civilians of Gettysburg

By Emily Jumba ’24

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.

Daniel Klingel (Clingle/Kelingel) was born around 1839 to Daniel and Sarah (Salome) Klingel in Mount Joy, Pennsylvania.  Daniel was the third oldest of their seven children.  His siblings were John, William, Catherine, Alfred, Sarah, and David.  Klingel’s father was a shoe and boot maker.  The family also hosted five additional young boarders in the 1850s: Henry Tellers, David Lohr, David Drowery, James Topper, and Susanna Little.  They ranged in age from 17 to 24 in the 1850 Census.  It is possible that the gentlemen worked as apprentices in Klingel’s shop, and that Susanna helped care for the children of the house. They also could have been boarders whom the family took in for additional rental income.  Daniel Klingel would grow up to achieve the free labor dream of owning land, which he acquired through hard work and moral living.  Tragically and quite ironically, his triumph would be undone in the battle that raged across his land in the name of protecting that same free labor ideology, forever changing both his socio-economic status and personal fortunes.

As a young man, Klingel followed in the footsteps of his father and became a farmer and a shoemaker who produced both boots and shoes.  His hard work paid off, eventually earning him enough money to procure his own residence and establish himself as a proudly independent member of Pennsylvania’s free labor society.  On August 30, 1860, he married Hannah S. Eyler.  Klingel’s younger brother, Albert, was among the first men in Pennsylvania to be drafted to fight for the Union.  He mustered into Company H of the 165^th Pennsylvania on November 8, 1862.  Daniel and Hannah purchased their Gettysburg farm in April of 1863 from an attorney, Jacob Benner, never suspecting the tragedy and tumult that would soon present itself on their very doorstep.  They also owned Klingel’s Boot and Shoe Emporium on Baltimore Street in Gettysburg.  When the Battle of Gettysburg began, the young family was still at their farm, where they rode out the first day of fighting.  The 63^rd Pennsylvania took up a position south of their farm along the Emmitsburg Road in an attempt to block a Confederate advance.  On July 1^st, Daniel helped to nurse fourteen to sixteen wounded Confederate soldiers that had been brought to his home.  They occupied its bottom floor.  Perhaps Klingel was helping them out of a nineteenth-century belief in the common humanity of the “enemy,” feeling the need to ease their suffering, despite their being invaders.  It is also possible that Klingel was forced to nurse the soldiers by their comrades, as had happened with other civilians during the battle.  If such were the case, it may have furthered Klingel’s already growing resentment towards the invaders of his community and front door.

On the morning of July 2^nd, he fled with his family (Hannah, and their two young children Samuel and Catherine) across the Trostle Farm to Little Round Top, which Klingel (ironically) believed would be a “safe spot” out of the way of the core fighting.  On their way, the family was stopped by an officer who at first attempted to take Klingel’s hat, but then proceeded to pay for it when Klingel protested.  During the chaos of the battle, soldiers and civilians sometimes crossed paths, and in some instances such as this one, the civilians refused to let the soldier run rough-shod over them.  Klingel refused to hand over his hat just because a soldier demanded it.  He had already given over his new family home to wounded soldiers and knew it was likely that more of his property would be destroyed in the fighting; to hand over one of his prized personal effects without protest or remuneration seemed an unnecessary and embarrassing step too far for Klingel.  Additionally, the ever forward-thinking Klingel may well have already been fretting about what the impending battle would do to his personal finances, and he could not afford to merely give his possessions away for free.

Daniel Klingel left his family at the base of Little Round Top, and then returned homewards to save his and Hannah’s better clothing.  Likely fretting over the future of the family’s cherished finery and again with an eye to the future financial ramifications of the battle, Klingel may have been intent on salvaging their most beloved possessions from sure destruction not only for their own use, but also for possible sale to help recoup their losses after the battle.  If Kingel were to leave such items at home, it was possible that they would be used for bandages in the makeshift hospital that his home had turned into, or perhaps just be destroyed or stolen by the soldiers occupying the house.  However, on his way back to his home, Klingel was stopped in the woods by his neighbor Reverend Joseph Sherfy, who warned him that intense fighting had moved onto the Klingel farm.

Klingel made his way back to his family and found a muddied soldier’s cap along the way, which he took.  This new acquisition had the potential to make him a dangerous target for enemy abuse, as he was wearing part of a military uniform; however, Klingel’s actions once again somewhat reflect his previously demonstrated refusal to just hide in fear during the battle. Back at Little Round Top, he ran into Union soldiers whose reconnaissance of the ground he helped by identifying key features on the landscape and locations at which he had seen Confederate soldiers gathering.  Both before and during battle, both at Gettysburg and in myriad other conflicts, civilians were regularly called upon to perform a variety of ad hoc military roles such as those that Klingel experienced in nursing and scouting.  Civilians were not just passive observers of the battle, as they often became important, active agents in how the battle was to unfold, whether they wanted to or not.

Afterwards, upon realizing that Little Round Top might well soon become enveloped in heated fighting, Klingel continued on with his family to a friend’s home along Rock Creek.  Like many other Gettysburg civilians who fled their homes, but not their town, during the battle, the Klingels found themselves a constantly mobile unit, relying on the kindnesses and generosity of friend networks who would continue to shelter and shuttle along vulnerable families to protection throughout the bloody contest.

After the Klingel family fled, Major Tremain examined Klingel’s property and reported back to Major General Daniel Sickles.  Sickles proceeded to commence his infamous plan of rejecting Major General George Meade’s orders that sought to keep his men posted on Big and Little Round Top, and instead marched out to the advance position of the Peach Orchard.  Brigadier General Joseph Carr ordered his troops to use the Klingel home for cover as some of them took up sinister sharpshooting positions.  Some of his men from the 16^th Massachusetts quickly broke holes in the walls to allow them to shoot out of, turning the once charming domestic abode into a veritable fort for organized killing.  Brigadier General Andrew Atkinson Humphreys joined Carr there.  Eventually, the 11^th New Jersey, 72^nd New York, 73^rd New York, 120^th New York, 12^th New Hampshire, and 16^th Massachusetts would maneuver into Klingel’s apple orchard.  The 11^th New Jersey and 120^th New York faced devastating losses as they made a stand against the waves of Mississippians and Alabamians.  Late in the day, Brigadier General Cadmus Wilcox, commanding the Alabama Brigade, ultimately led his troops in overrunning the Klingel Farm, routing the Union troops, and forcing Humphreys’s division into a dangerous, pell-mell retreat toward Cemetery Ridge.        

The Confederates continued to hold the farm and use the house for cover until the famed Pickett-Pettigrew assault on July 3^rd.  Prior to the assault, Confederates employed Klingel’s southern field as an artillery emplacement with guns menacingly aimed at the Union lines along Cemetery Hill.  For the most part, however, on this day, the farm proved not a protective bastion nor a strategic gun emplacement, but rather a frustrating obstruction in the path of the advancing Confederate columns, who had to break formation to march around the farmhouse.  During the course of a battle, locations could quickly and suddenly shift from holding key strategic significance or shelter to actively impeding one side’s fighting abilities.

When Klingel returned to his farm after the battle on July 4^th, he found Union officers sitting around his kitchen table, who had taken most of his supply of flour.  They were likely resting after the fighting and trying to sort through the mountain of tasks to attend to in the aftermath of the fight.  The windows of the house were shattered and the walls were riddled with bullet holes, in addition to the gaping holes they bore that were created by the ramming of Union soldiers who had crudely constructed their sharpshooter nests there.  Klingel also found his crops, shoemaking tools, and fences destroyed, his cattle missing, and dead soldiers scattered across his property.  Klingel would later claim the loss of 3.5 acres of corn, 3.5 acres of oats, 2 acres of timothy grass, damage to his orchard, and a missing cow.  He also claimed that there were “rifle pits” dug across his property.

After the battle, Klingel and Sherfy worked together to make cakes from some flour that they had scrounged up for the soldiers.  Across the battle-scarred borough and its outlying farms, neighbors regularly banded together in those post-battle days in an attempt to help each other survive, begin to rebuild, and try to recoup their losses.  Klingel later recorded that he shared some of the cakes he made with a sick soldier who had not eaten for two days, but not as a free hand-out: the soldier paid Klingel a whopping five dollars for half of a cake.  Here, Klingel once again demonstrated his ingenuity in finding even small ways to make up for some of the damages that his farm had suffered during the battle.  If a soldier was willing to pay five dollars for a piece of cake, Klingel was more than ready to accept the payment.  Such recompense also helped to restore a sense of agency and control to Klingel in the midst of a situation where chaos seemed to run riot.  His wife, Hannah, also began baking bread for the soldiers and even set up a system whereby officers could pay her in advance for a place on a running waiting list to receive the next loaf.  Meanwhile, as it had on July 1^st, the house also continued to serve as a field hospital in the days following the battle, with the family helping out by continuing to bake for the soldiers and attend to their wounds.  Some of the dead soldiers that the Klingels had found on the property were also temporarily interred where they lay during this time, turning the once fertile farm into a charnel house. In 1933, human remains were still being discovered on the Klingel property, along with uniform buttons and the remnants of cartridge boxes—a testament to the hard fighting around the property and the macabre scenes across the farm in the battle’s wake.  Excavators from the National Park Service believe that the bodies were those of two men from Wilcox’s Alabama brigade.

For Daniel, one of the greatest tragedies of the aftermath was the hard fact that the family had been living on their farm for only about three months before carnage swept through the property; the self-made Daniel Klingel, who had worked so hard to become an independent free laborer, and had only recently achieved his freeholder dreams, was literally being unmade by a battle and a war fought across his property to secure such free labor dreams for all in perpetuity.  Klingel filed a federal claim for $880 in 1868, but was denied most of the money, only receiving a paltry $2 for some hay that had been taken by an officer.  Klingel’s life had been a prime example of the free labor ideology dream.  He had worked hard, maintained a good moral character, and managed to purchase land of his own to work on, becoming self-sufficient.  He even had his own shoe business to supplement his income.  Klingel’s fortunes were completely undone by the battle, which left all of his hard work in ruins.  Despite the federal government supposedly championing free labor, it was still hesitant to reimburse even those civilians who had previously upheld those ideals for damages incurred by the biggest battle waged in the name of Union, democracy, and free labor unless those civilians could definitively prove that their damages were caused by Union troops themselves.  The United States government was leery of creating a morally degenerate pauper class that was dependent on government handouts, and, true to free labor ideals, expected people to be able to pull themselves out of their financial woes through work hard and self-reliance.  Additionally, with more than two years of astronomic war-related expenses weighing on the federal government, the public coffers were not exactly overflowing with extra funds with which to compensate inconvenienced civilians.

Despite (or perhaps, in light of) his personal misfortunes the previous year, Daniel ultimately enlisted in Company G of the 209^th Pennsylvania Infantry on September 6, 1864.  He may have enlisted because he needed the financial boost that a soldier’s bounty would provide to support his family after the devastating losses during the battle.  It is also possible that he enlisted out of a desire to gain revenge for the destruction that the Confederates had caused to his family life that he worked so hard to build up.  However, he soon received a medical discharge on March 19, 1865 after being diagnosed with heart disease.  Upon returning home, Klingel found that, surprisingly, his fences had been completely fixed and his orchards were once again thriving.  Perhaps Hannah and their neighbors had worked together to rebuild, reminiscent of how Sherfy had come to help bake bread for the soldiers in the days after the battle.

However, Klingel’s ongoing personal financial burdens from the war, coupled with his ill health, ultimately forced him to sell the property to Joseph J. Smith on March 29, 1867 and move his family back to Mount Joy (where he was born).  In addition to these financial and health problems which contributed to his sale of the farm, Klingel also had several crushing memories associated with the land, causing him to seek out a new start for his family: first, just three months after purchasing the land, a major battle was fought across it, destroying much of the farm that Klingel had worked to build up.  Then, in September of that same year, as the family was starting to recover, their young daughter, Catherine passed away.  Not even a year later, the Klingels’ infant son John Elmer Ellsworth (named, interestingly, in patriotic honor of the famous first Union officer to die in the Civil War) also passed away, just days before Daniel Klingel mustered into the 209^th Pennsylvania.  Soon after Klingel returned home from his military service, he and Hannah had a daughter named Sarah, who passed away later that year.  The Klingel family had faced tragedy after tragedy in that home, starting almost as soon as they moved in, which may well have driven them to move elsewhere.  Klingel had actually attempted to rid himself of the land shortly after being discharged from the army in 1865, but was unable to sell it until 1867 at public auction.

In November of 1867, back in Mount Joy, Hannah gave birth to another son, who was named Harry.  However, the family faced tragedy again a few months later when Hannah passed away on February 18, 1868.  Harry would only outlive her for five more months before also passing away.  Despite this successive wave of unrelenting tragedy, by 1870, Daniel Klingel had remarried, to Mary E. Conover.  Their first son, Allen, who was born in 1870, only lived for five months.  In 1872, they had another son, Daniel, who passed away at nine months of age.  Their later sons, George and Robert did survive to adulthood.  Between his two marriages, Daniel had lost six children and his first wife in a ten year span, with only four of his children surviving to adulthood.  Despite having achieved the free labor dream early in his life, Daniel’s personal fortunes had tanked at every turn continuously almost immediately after becoming a freeholder.

The Klingels resided in Mount Joy through the 1870 Census, which lists Daniel’s personal estate value at $2,575, and his real estate value at $5,000.  He had seemingly recouped his financial losses from the Battle of Gettysburg by then, but at the same time was struggling through significant emotional duress after the deaths of so many loved ones and continued to battle his heart issues.  In addition, his socio-economic status had suffered as a result of his sale of the Gettysburg farm, as he was no longer the self-sufficient landowner of free labor dreams, but merely the owner of a store whose health was in rapid decline. 

Between the 1870 Census and 1885, the Klingel family again moved, this time to Baltimore in another attempt to start anew.  There, he opened a new shop on Madison Avenue.  However, Klingel’s health continued to deteriorate. Adding to his list of troubles, he was forced to reckon with the early death of his second wife, Mary who passed away at a mere 39 years of age, in 1883.  In one of the few success stories of his post-Gettysburg life, on September 10, 1890, he received a military pension for complete medical disability as a result of the heart problem that had caused him to be medically discharged in 1865.  Nevertheless, the pension proved bittersweet; while it provided necessary money to help support the aged and infirm Klingel, it meant that he would spend the rest of his life as a dependent of the federal government—the exact opposite fortune that he had once dearly held as a free laborer and landowner in April of 1863.  This socio-economic retreat would not have been lost on Klingel, who had sacrificed both his home to a battle fought in defense of democracy and free labor ideals, and his health in large part to the stresses and grief that accompanied his successive property and familial losses.  Despite every attempt to plan ahead for financial hardship and fight for self-reliance, before, during, and in the immediate wake of the battle, and despite his numerous attempts to begin anew after successive financial and personal losses, Daniel Klingel realized that hard work and moral living could only take one so far in what Abraham Lincoln famously called “the race of life.”  Successes could be fleeting, and precarious at best.  For Daniel Klingel, fortune simply was not in his favor.  On August 17, 1893, Klingel passed away and was buried in Evergreen Cemetery, back in Gettysburg—the place in which he both enjoyed the first glimmers of free labor’s successes, and saw those glimmers forever snuffed out.

Works Referenced

“1850 United States Federal Census – AncestryLibrary.Com.” Accessed April 11, 2022. https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/discoveryui-content/view/887649:8054.

“1860 United States Federal Census – AncestryLibrary.Com.” Accessed April 11, 2022. https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/discoveryui-content/view/3055697:7667?tid=&pid=&queryId=c019cbb7645a83a871df7ea7ff44fc5f&_phsrc=TQW205&_phstart=successSource.

“1890 Veterans Schedules of the U.S. Federal Census – AncestryLibrary.Com.” Accessed April 11, 2022. https://search.ancestrylibrary.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?dbid=8667&h=703537&indiv=try&o_vc=Record:OtherRecord&rhSource=2451.

“Baltimore, Maryland, U.S., Directories, 1890 – AncestryLibrary.Com.” Accessed April 11, 2022. https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/discoveryui-content/view/83498:4630.

Boyd, Kevin. “Barns of the Civil War: Daniel Klingle.” Aged Woods, Inc. (blog), November 21, 2017. https://www.agedwoods.com/barns-civil-war-daniel-klingle/.

“Daniel H. Klingel (1839-1893) – Find a Grave…” Accessed April 11, 2022. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/19479687/daniel-h-klingel.

Fold3. “Albert Klingle: PERSON, Pictures and Information – Fold3.Com.” Accessed April 11, 2022. https://www-fold3-com.ezpro.cc.gettysburg.edu/memorial/634607708/albert-klingle.

Fold3. “Page 1 Civil War Service Index (CMSR) – Union – Pennsylvania.” Accessed April 11, 2022. http://p9292-www.fold3.com.ezpro.cc.gettysburg.edu:2048/image/294168763?terms=albert,pennsylvania,165th,klingle.

Harte, N B. “The Boot and Shoe Trades in London and Paris in the Long Eighteenth Century,” n.d., 391.

Luskey, Ashley. “Daniel Klingel:A Free Labor Triumph Destroyed in its Very Defense,” 2022.

“National Park Civil War Series: The Battle of Gettysburg.” Accessed April 11, 2022. http://npshistory.com/publications/civil_war_series/16/sec20.htm.

“Pennsylvania and New Jersey, U.S., Church and Town Records, 1669-2013 – AncestryLibrary.Com.” Accessed April 11, 2022. https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/discoveryui-content/view/2021035524:2451?tid=&pid=&queryId=d97fa690b206481b18c5444e9be4a3c0&_phsrc=TQW197&_phstart=successSource.

“Pennsylvania and New Jersey, U.S., Church and Town Records, 1669-2013 – AncestryLibrary.Com.” Accessed April 11, 2022. https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/discoveryui-content/view/5985518:2451.

“Pennsylvania and New Jersey, U.S., Church and Town Records, 1669-2013 – AncestryLibrary.Com.” Accessed April 11, 2022. https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/discoveryui-content/view/5985014:2451.

“Pennsylvania and New Jersey, U.S., Church and Town Records, 1669-2013 – AncestryLibrary.Com.” Accessed April 11, 2022. https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/discoveryui-content/view/5984740:2451.

“Pennsylvania and New Jersey, U.S., Church and Town Records, 1669-2013 – AncestryLibrary.Com.” Accessed April 11, 2022. https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/discoveryui-content/view/6764660:2451?tid=&pid=&queryId=94dd2bd412f73ec980328f67c1c1b611&_phsrc=TQW154&_phstart=successSource.

“Pennsylvania and New Jersey, U.S., Church and Town Records, 1669-2013 – AncestryLibrary.Com.” Accessed April 11, 2022. https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/discoveryui-content/view/6975622:2451?tid=&pid=&queryId=9a3d30bb77d265df8c301ef5b54ccf1a&_phsrc=TQW177&_phstart=successSource.

“Pennsylvania, U.S., Veterans Burial Cards, 1777-2012 – AncestryLibrary.Com.” Accessed April 11, 2022. https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/discoveryui-content/view/1394053:1967.

“Pennsylvania, U.S., Veterans Burial Cards, 1777-2012 – AncestryLibrary.Com.” Accessed April 11, 2022. https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/discoveryui-content/view/1394053:1967?tid=&pid=&queryId=9a3d30bb77d265df8c301ef5b54ccf1a&_phsrc=TQW177&_phstart=successSource.

The Battle of Gettysburg. “Klingel Farm at Gettysburg.” Accessed April 11, 2022. https://gettysburg.stonesentinels.com/battlefield-farms/klingle-farm/.

“U.S., City Directories, 1822-1995 – AncestryLibrary.Com.” Accessed April 11, 2022. https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/discoveryui-content/view/742387283:2469.

“U.S., Civil War Pension Index: General Index to Pension Files, 1861-1934 – AncestryLibrary.Com.” Accessed April 11, 2022. https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/discoveryui-content/view/339076:4654?tid=&pid=&queryId=9a3d30bb77d265df8c301ef5b54ccf1a&_phsrc=TQW178&_phstart=successSource.

By Emily Jumba ’24

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.

Abraham (Abram) Trostle was born between 1821 and 1822 to Peter and Sussanah Trostle in Straban, Pennsylvania.  His parents belonged to the Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church.  Abraham was the second oldest of their four children.  Like his parents, Abraham eventually became a farmer, although most of the duties in running the farm eventually fell to his wife as he battled mental illness and alcoholism.  Peter Trostle acquired what would later become the Trostle family farm in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania from David Troxell in 1839 through Troxell’s will.  (The property came as payment for debts owed between Troxell and Trostle).  He decided to keep both this new property and his own farm in Straban Township.  Peter would later give the 144-acre Gettysburg farm to Abraham, who had moved there with his family at some point before the 1850 census.  In addition to the land, which encompassed 144 acres just south of the borough, east of the Emmitsburg Road, the farm included a farmhouse, a barn, and a springhouse. The farm would be engulfed by intense combat on the 2^nd day of battle, sustaining significant damage, but still standing and operable in the wake of the fight; the farm was a fitting symbol of its unflappable family matriarch, Catharine, who herself bore the heavy burdens and scars of an embattled marriage, and of the war fought on her very doorstep, but whose survival and ultimate success bespoke of a remarkable inner strength.

Abraham Trostle married Catharine Walter at Gettysburg’s St. James Lutheran Church on January 15, 1844.  Later in their marriage, Catharine would feature as the head of the household for decades, defying typical gender roles of the time.  They had eleven children together, of whom the following ten survived to adulthood: George, Lydia, Conrad, Mary, (Abraham) Isaiah, Margaret, Ephraim, Peter, Layton, and Sarah.  According to the 1850 census, Daniel and Christian Sandy, who were respectively 16 and 11 years old, also lived on the farm with the Trostles and their young children.  Both Sandy children reportedly had at least some schooling.  Daniel worked as a laborer and was likely a farmhand.  Christian did not have a listed occupation.  Perhaps she helped Catharine with domestic work and caring for the other children.  It is also possible that the Trostles took the Sandy children in as borders, especially if their family was undergoing financial hardship and could not support them at the time.  Neighbors within the small community of Gettysburg often assisted each other, not just during the battle and its aftermath, but also as a part of daily life.                    

In 1859, Abraham found local infamy in the Adams Sentinel and General Advertiser. According to these two papers, the local court had found Abraham guilty for assaulting Edward Ziegler and ordered him to pay a $5.00 fine, as well as their court fees. While $5.00 was a significant amount of money, it was not necessarily a major financial burden on the Trostle family, whose real estate was valued at a modest but stable $5,200, and his personal estate at $1,500, just a few months later in the 1860 census.  Instead, being brought to court for the assault would have proven far greater of a humiliation, as it negatively reflected on Abraham’s temperament and respectability.  Further tarnishing the family name, he also began building a reputation for public drunkenness.  Abraham was not the only man in town who had a proclivity for drink (others included James Leister and Joshua Thompson, the deceased husbands of the famed Lydia Leister and Mary Thompson).  It is possible that Abraham resorted to drinking due to the stresses and struggles of balancing his farm and family’s financial well-being; however, if he struggled, the family still managed to remain rather well-off by then. 

Later in his life, Abraham was diagnosed as having an (unidentified) mental illness.  Perhaps he used alcohol to try to treat the symptoms of this mental illness that he struggled with.  Regardless of the cause, Abraham’s drinking habits would have negatively reflected on both him and Catharine.  Likely perceived by others as unable to properly care for his family and maintain a respectable and moral lifestyle, Abraham’s growing reputation put more pressure on Catharine to assume the duties of head of house, which in turn further contributed to Abraham’s sense of emasculation.

Interestingly, when Abraham’s father wrote out his original will, Peter Trostle initially left the Gettysburg property to Abraham, but later amended it in 1860.  Instead, he decided that the farm was to be held in trust for Abraham, rather than Abraham actually inheriting it in his name.  This noticeable change was likely due to Abraham’s growing reputation for vice.  In effect, Catharine took control of running the farm as Abraham continued to become less able to do so.  Such official legal responsibilities for the estate would have directly challenged the traditional gender roles that she had previously expected to fulfill in life.  In addition to maintaining their home as a wife and mother, she became more responsible for finances and the overseeing of manual labor, which traditionally fell under the purview of men during the nineteenth century.  While quickly teaching herself how to manage the family’s finances, Catharine also had to endure the deteriorating nature of their public reputation, which was crumbling under the weight of Abraham’s vices and the state of his household affairs; suddenly, it was Abraham who was dependent upon his wife, and not vice versa.  Additionally, owning property was a key tenet of free labor ideology, which championed an individual’s ability to make his way up the rungs of the socio-economic ladder through hard work, moral living, and determination.  By losing his land inheritance and the ability to own and operate property under his personal name, Abraham’s social status would have sunk even further in the community.  Tragically, these developments likely created even more internal strife for Abraham, which certainly did not help his addiction.

During the weeks leading up to the Battle of Gettysburg, the Trostles had heard about the approaching Confederate army from a variety of sources.  They saw posters calling for the local militia to defend their homes.  They also received a warning from Governor Andrew Curtin and heard rumors from other locals about the approaching armies.  On June 28, 1863, word arrived that a significant contingent of Confederates were looming just to the west of Gettysburg, in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.  According to Mary, one of the Trostle children, Catharine and George (one of Mary’s oldest siblings, who was eighteen years old at the time) made a plan to hide their horses and cows from the Confederates.  They also put some of the family’s valuables in a bag that George buried somewhere in their apple orchard.  Just as they were being inundated with the swirling rumors about the approaching Confederates, the Trostles likely also heard reports of the Confederates stealing or destroying civilians’ property.  By burying their valuables, they hoped to hide them from the marauding enemy.  Mary claimed that Abraham sometimes helped to execute these plans, but overall did not add much, as he was still fighting his mental illness.  Given Abraham’s illness and relative incapacitation, it was even more necessary that the family preserve their valuables in case they needed to use them to support themselves in the wake of a battle.

Before the battle began on July 1, 1863, the Trostle family uneasily went about their chores to try to distract themselves from their worries.  However, as the first sounds of gunfire began reverberating across the once pastoral fields to the north and west of town, Abraham grew restless. He grabbed a pistol and a musket and was just about to leave the farm to go find the Confederates when Catharine stopped him and pleaded with her husband, arguing that it would be better if he remained on their farm to defend both their property and their family.  He may have wanted to fight to try to help re-prove his masculinity and restore his honor that he had lost when he lost his inheritance and property.  Despite not being able to operate his farm, he could at least attempt to defend it and his family, thus somewhat boosting his reputation in the eyes of his peers.  It is also possible that his mental illness may have contributed to his rash decision to fight. By having to step in to calm her husband down and convince him to come back inside, Catharine once more solidified her role as the de facto head of the household, once again reversing traditional gender roles in serving as the rational and cool-minded individual who was responsible for talking her irrational and emotion-driven husband off the ledge of madness.

Throughout the first day of battle, the Trostle family anxiously remained on their farm, which was thus far left unscathed.  However, the sound of fighting and re-deploying soldiers became infinitely closer on the evening of the first as the broken Federal lines retreated to their stronghold atop Cemetery Hill, Confederate forces nipping at their heels all the way through town.  The family must have become increasingly more anxious as the sounds of gun-fire drew closer to their home.  It is also possible that Abraham became even more agitated as the battle closed in on their home, particularly after his earlier determination to defend his home.  During the evening, more troops began amassing on both sides, with lines of gray and blue eventually stretching forth along both sides of the Emmitsburg Road, atop Cemetery Ridge and Seminary Ridge.  It would not be long before their farm would become engulfed by combat.

On July 2, 1863, the Trostle family awoke to find Union soldiers positioned throughout their farm.  Major General Daniel Sickles, commanding the Third Corps, had defied Major General George Meade’s orders to maintain his position along the rear high ground stretching through Little Round Top; instead, he moved part of his Corps from Little Round Top significantly forward to an advance ridgeline encompassing the Trostle, Sherfy, and Klingel farms to counter the possible advance of Confederate forces from Seminary Ridge across the Emmitsburg Road.  As the day began, Catharine attempted to maintain a semblance of normalcy in the home, cooking dinner for her family.  George hid a horse and a cow in the woods near their home.  The family initially planned on hiding in their basement during the battle, but were later instructed to leave by a few Union soldiers that informed them of approaching Confederates.

Catharine and George leapt into action, George readying their wagon with a horse that he had kept on the farm, and Catharine collecting her other children.  In a usual display of perhaps overconfident masculine bravado, Abraham declared that he intended to stay on the farm to help defend it against the enemy.  George ultimately offered to stay with him (perhaps seeking to protect his unwell father as much as his property), so Catharine fled alone with her younger children.  In a postwar account to her grandson, Mary later described her respect for her mother’s immense strength in that instant in which she bravely took sole charge of whisking her children to safety, despite crying upon leaving her home.  As they pulled away in the wagon, en route to a relative’s house in Hanover, Catharine later noted to Mary that she caught sight of Union soldiers who were boldly sitting down to eat the dinner that she had just finished making.  A flurry of emotions likely went through her mind at the sight.  She was certainly upset about the battle coming literally over her doorstep and into the home she had worked so hard to maintain.  She may have also felt a glimmer of pride in the knowledge that she had helped to feed the farm’s defenders who devoured the bread.  As she left with the children, Catharine’s mind likely buzzed with worries and wonder as to what might happen to her husband and son, as well as their home. Would she ever see any of them again? And if so, in what condition?  Once again, the traditional gender roles that Catharine had grown up with were being flipped.  Rather than her husband rushing her and the children to safety, it fell to her to see her children out of the battle’s reach.  Perhaps she had been somewhat prepared for this, after taking on the challenge of managing the farm years earlier while Abraham’s mental illness and alcoholism worsened.  However, running a farm was very different from fleeing the destruction of battle and the devastation it had the potential to wreak on the home she had worked so hard to maintain.

Shortly after Catharine’s departure, the 5^th and 9^th Massachusetts Batteries moved into position on the Trostle Farm, the air riddled with shells.  Colonel Freeman McGilvery had brought in the 9^th Massachusetts, led by Captain John Bigelow, from Taneytown to help reinforce the Union lines.  Bigelow complained about the lack of visibility at their location, as he was stationed within a swale that hid most of the action along the Emmitsburg Road and the Peach Orchard (where Sickles’s new “salient” pivoted) from sight; nevertheless, he was ordered to remain by the farm’s stonewall and await further orders.  The fighting began around 4:00 PM and lasted for approximately three hours, with approximately 15,000 Confederates under James Longstreet’s division swinging out, en echelon, from right to left as they attempted to push the Union troops from the heights along Devil’s Den and Little Round Top, the Peach Orchard, and the Wheatfield—their sights set on the heart of Cemetery Ridge, near Cemetery Hill.  The Confederates plowed through Sickles’s advanced line at the Peach Orchard and began driving the retreating Federals north and east, in the direction of the Trostle Farm and Cemetery Ridge.

Bigelow commanded six cannons, although two of them experienced such violent after-fire recoiling against the stone wall that they were soon damaged beyond use.  Bigelow ordered his men to take those cannons to the rear.  As his subordinates attempted to roll the two cannons through the Trostles’ farm gate, the first cannon overturned, blocking the road and forcing the artillerists to maneuver the second cannon over the wall.  Meanwhile, the 9^th Massachusetts was under heavy shell fire from Confederates, who had seized control of the now-abandoned Union guns in the Peach Orchard, and were using them to deadly effect against Bigelow’s gunners.  Bigleow himself was wounded in the fighting and fell from his horse.  The 21^st Mississippi, under Colonel D. B. Humphreys, surged forward and the farmyard dissolved into chaos as many men engaged in brutal hand-to-hand fighting, while still others desperately loaded and fired the remaining cannon into the onslaught of Rebels.  Sensing defeat, Bigelow ordered a retreat and was guided to safety by Bugler Charles Reed, while five of his cannons were lost to the Mississippians.  The 9^th Massachusetts lost an estimated eighty of their eighty-eight horses at the Trostle farm, the mangled bodies of whom were later captured in post-battle photographs of the area.

Captain A. Judson Clark and New Jersey’s Battery B were also engaged in the fighting around the Trostle farm, posted on the front-left side of the property.  They had arrived at their post early in the morning and held the position for several hours before eventually being shifted forward to try to stem the tide of Confederates advancing across the Emmitsburg Road, diagonally from the Trostle house.

Perhaps most notably, Major General Sickles himself came to observe the fighting at the Trostle farm during the three-hour afternoon onslaught.  Setting up a “field headquarters” in front of the farm house, he commanded his troops from the field next to the Trostle barn.  It was there that he was famously struck in the lower leg by a twelve-pound cannonball while sitting atop his horse.  In an attempt to calm his subordinates who had witnessed the grievous wound, Sickles casually smoked a cigar as he was stretchered off the field; his leg would later be amputated and sent to the Army Medical Museum, and eventually to the Smithsonian for display.

Like most other homes in the area, the Trostle farm became a field hospital after the fighting there ended on July 2^nd.  It would remain a hospital for the remainder of the battle and through July 4^th, despite the renewal of Confederate advances bordering much of the Trostle property during the July 3^rd famed “Pickett-Pettigrew” assault.  Catharine and her children returned to the farm on July 6, 1863 to find complete carnage.  Their yard was full of the dead—both soldiers and horses.  Photographers such as Alexander Gardner were already there, documenting the scene.  Additionally, their home was riddled with bullet holes and the brick barn wall bore a large hole from a cannon shell that had passed through it.  Abraham and George rode out the entire battle in their home as bullets tore through the walls.  They likely hid in the basement during the worst of the fighting.  Despite Abraham’s intentions to protect the farm from the invaders, he was unable to save it, even with George there to help.  The two of them did not stand much of a chance against the sheer destruction that could be caused by the armies.  The battle delivered a devastating blow to the family’s precarious financial situation, especially as Abraham was not able to provide much help in the farm’s restoration.  Aside from the bullet-riddled house and the barn that was hit by a cannonball, most of their crops were destroyed, and they were missing several necessary items like quilts, pillows, and timber.  Approximately one hundred dead horses littered the farm, in addition to the dead and wounded soldiers that lay on the fields.  After the battle, the family began to sort through the devastation and went to work tending to the wounded soldiers with the help of some of their neighbors, particularly the Walter family.  Mary would go on to note that the already mentally ailing Abraham never really recovered from seeing the battle rage across his land in such a devastating manner.

Adding to their miseries on the farm, Peter Trostle passed away on September 11, 1863, and the property was officially listed in Catharine’s name in 1865.  By then, Abraham was living in a sprawling asylum called the Harrisburg State Hospital.  The hospital, which boasted seventy buildings and extensive agricultural fields to allow self-sufficiency in producing food for its inhabitants, was in operation from 1845 until 2006.  Despite humane reforms to asylums in the mid-nineteenth century, they often remained institutions in which people were incarcerated for a variety of reasons without much differentiation as to their individual cases.  People with mental illnesses, alcoholics, and even women whose husbands wished to divorce them, but could not, were collectively housed there.  Abraham’s relocation to the Harrisburg State Hospital likely further diminished his family’s reputation amongst fellow Gettysburgians as asylums and mental illness as nineteenth-century society held a strong stigma against them.  Due to Abraham’s now physical (and long-time mental) absence, most of the responsibilities of raising the Trostle  children and both restoring and running the farm fell upon Catharine, further deepening the gender role-reversals that Catharine had continuously faced throughout her marriage to Abraham.  By 1870, George had moved away from home, but his younger siblings were starting to come of an age where they could better assist Catharine on the farm and with restoring their battle-torn home. (Eventually, George would inherit the property after his parents’ deaths and would sell it to the federal government for $4,500 to help with the creation of Gettysburg National Military Park.  Abraham passed away in 1877, with Catharine outliving him for a decade).  However, in 1870, the Trostle children still at home ranged in age from a mere 10 to 17 years old; no doubt, the misfortunes plaguing their family forced them to grow up fast and abandon any shred of what may have once existed of their youthful innocence.

Years after the war, in 1875, Catharine filed a claim for $3,094.50 with the federal government on Abraham’s behalf for help covering the damages to their farm.  (For perspective, the 1860 census had recorded the combined real estate and personal estate value of Abraham and the farm to be $6,700.  The family lost almost half of their assets in the battle).  She claimed that the damages were caused by Union soldiers, but, as was the common response to many Gettysburgians who filed damage claims, claims agent, Major George Bell replied that the inflictors of the damage could not be proved; thus, Catharine’s claim was denied.  Her claim had included 16 tons of hay, 20 tons of wheat, 10 acres of oats, 10 acres of corn, 12 acres of grasses, garden vegetables, 2 quilts, 2 pillows, 2 pairs of shoes, 7 yards of carpet, 1 featherbed, 1 bridle, 20 posts, 1 saddle, 20 acres of timber, 4 cords per acre, and the use of their buildings for hospitals.  Even worse, the family was never able to recover the bag of valuables that George had buried in the apple orchard.  Perhaps they had somehow been uncovered amidst the shot and shell that ploughed up the land and an unsuspecting soldier happened across them in the midst of battle.  Alternately, George may have simply forgotten where he buried the bag.

With Abraham’s mental health only continuing to decline in the asylum, and her damage claim rejected, the future of the farm and of the Trostle family lay largely in Catharine’s hands, as well as those of her children.  They ultimately decided to leave the cannonball hole in the barn wall; perhaps it proved too difficult to remove without incurring additional damage, or perhaps it was a testament to the historic battle that their farm and family had borne witness to—and had managed to survive.  In many ways, the still extant hole from that cannonball, which has since become an iconic tourist attraction for visitors to the battlefield, speaks to the larger story and spirit of Catharine Trostle and her brood—a silent reminder of the tragedy and unmendable damage inflicted on the family by both Abraham’s mental illness and the battle, but a wound that ultimately was unable to defeat the tenacious and unflappable woman at the head of the house.

Works Referenced

“1850 United States Federal Census – AncestryLibrary.Com.” Accessed March 21, 2022. https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/discoveryui-content/view/875803:8054?tid=&pid=&queryId=94daa6d5063cf38afb1c6fc68ca86c15&_phsrc=TQW184&_phstart=successSource.

“1860 United States Federal Census – AncestryLibrary.Com.” Accessed March 21, 2022. https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/discoveryui-content/view/3040004:7667?tid=&pid=&queryId=94daa6d5063cf38afb1c6fc68ca86c15&_phsrc=TQW184&_phstart=successSource.

“1870 United States Federal Census – AncestryLibrary.Com.” Accessed March 21, 2022. https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/discoveryui-content/view/7091258:7163?tid=&pid=&queryId=94daa6d5063cf38afb1c6fc68ca86c15&_phsrc=TQW184&_phstart=successSource.

“Abraham Trostle (1821-1877) – Find a Grave…” Accessed March 21, 2022. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/14692076/abraham-trostle.

ARIESIN. “Saving Captain Bigelow.” Civil War Tails at the Homestead Diorama Museum – Gettysburg Miniatures (blog), August 4, 2018. https://civilwartails.com/2018/08/04/saving-captain-bigelow/.

“Battle Unit Details – The Civil War (U.S. National Park Service).” Accessed March 23, 2022. https://www.nps.gov/subjects/civilwar/search-battle-units-detail.htm.

Clarke, Tim. “Sickles’ Leg and the Army Medical Museum.” Military Medicine 179, no. 9 (September 2014): 1051–1051. https://doi.org/10.7205/MILMED-D-14-00182.

Gettysburg, Mailing Address: 1195 Baltimore Pike, and PA 17325 Contact Us. “Trostle Farm Then and Now – Gettysburg National Military Park (U.S. National Park Service).” Accessed May 15, 2022. https://www.nps.gov/gett/learn/photosmultimedia/trostle-farm-then-and-now.htm.

Luskey, Ashley. “An Unflappable Spirit: Facing Hardship Both Within and Outside the Trostle Home.” Civilians of Gettysburg, 2022.

“National Park Civil War Series: The Battle of Gettysburg.” Accessed March 21, 2022. http://npshistory.com/publications/civil_war_series/16/sec20.htm.

“National Park Service: Gettysburg Seminar Papers — Unsung Heroes of Gettysburg.” Accessed March 23, 2022. http://npshistory.com/series/symposia/gettysburg_seminars/5/essay4.htm.

“Pennsylvania and New Jersey, U.S., Church and Town Records, 1669-2013 – AncestryLibrary.Com.” Accessed March 21, 2022. https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/discoveryui-content/view/6759217:2451?tid=&pid=&queryId=f4d74af4672629e34229efd39397dd71&_phsrc=TQW187&_phstart=successSource.

“Pennsylvania and New Jersey, U.S., Church and Town Records, 1669-2013 – AncestryLibrary.Com.” Accessed March 21, 2022. https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/discoveryui-content/view/6771245:2451?tid=&pid=&queryId=94daa6d5063cf38afb1c6fc68ca86c15&_phsrc=TQW184&_phstart=successSource.

“Pennsylvania and New Jersey, U.S., Church and Town Records, 1669-2013 – AncestryLibrary.Com.” Accessed March 21, 2022. https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/discoveryui-content/view/6765852:2451?tid=&pid=&queryId=94daa6d5063cf38afb1c6fc68ca86c15&_phsrc=TQW184&_phstart=successSource.

“Peter Trostle Sr. (1788-1863) – Find a Grave…” Accessed March 21, 2022. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/19617022/peter-trostle.

“Susannah Cashman Trostle (1790-1870) – Find a Grave Memorial.” Accessed March 21, 2022. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/19617043/susannah-trostle.

By Emily Jumba ’24

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.

One of the leading Democratic voices and most influential figures in the greater Gettysburg community, John Swope grew up in a wealthy family and received an excellent education, which he used to start his own lucrative medical practice.  The privileges afforded to him by his youth, along with sheer luck, helped him to emerge relatively unscathed from the Battle of Gettysburg in comparison to many of his neighbors, allowing him access to several unique opportunities in the following years.

 John Swope was born on December 25, 1827 in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania to George and Margaret Swope.  John would be their only child.  George Swope worked in Gettysburg as a dry goods merchant when John was born, but was elected President of the Gettysburg Bank in 1849, following the retirement of Margaret’s wealthy father, George Smyser, from the position.  In 1850, George’s real estate was valued at $5,000; thus, not only did familial connections earn him a leadership position at the bank, but he also had reasonable wealth in his own right to justify such distinction.  George embodied the free labor ideology dream, working his way up to the status of a merchant, and eventually accumulating enough wealth to purchase his own house and farm, which tenants maintained. His son would, in many ways, follow in his father’s footsteps, but ultimately come to leave an even larger political footprint upon not only the town, but also the nation.

George helped the Gettysburg Bank transition into the highly successful Gettysburg National Bank.  He also served as the President and Director of The Gettysburg Railroad Company, Gettysburg Water Company, The Adams County Mutual Fire Insurance Company, and the Gettysburg and Petersburg Turnpike Company—positions which assured the Swope family’s influence over some of the most significant civic organizations in the borough.  The small family moved into a newly constructed, two-story brick house at the corner of York and North Stratton Streets in 1836.  The property also came with a stable, a well, and a two-acre plot of land outside of town where the Swopes would also have a small farm.  This land purchase made George Swope a success in the eyes of free labor ideology proponents who would celebrate him for earning these successes through hard work and the pursuit of moral living (while likely disregarding the connections with George Smyser that helped smooth his path).

John Swope was used to sharing his family’s home with individuals from outside his nuclear family throughout his life.   His grandfather, Judge Smyser, sister-in-law, Bessie L. Mile, and niece, Blanche Klinger all lived with him for varying blocks of time. Additionally, many servants also occupied the house, ensuring that the Swopes would always live in comfort.  Once the top half-story was added on in 1860, the servants began living on that floor, and even had their own staircase down into the kitchen.

John boasted a highly respectable educational pedigree that set him up well for success, prosperity, and influence later in his life.  He initially enrolled in Pennsylvania College in 1842, where he studied until 1844.  He then transferred to Princeton University to complete his undergraduate degree, and eventually continued on to earn his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania.  His doctoral program consisted of classes that were held four months a year for two years.  His degree certified him to work as both a doctor and a dentist.  After graduating, Swope opened a lucrative practice in Hanover, where he worked as a physician.  Hanover was the original home of George Swope, so John likely still had connections to that community.

In October of 1849, Swope married Emma Wirt, who was from Hanover.  They had four children together (three of whom survived to adulthood) before her death in 1862.  They began their marriage living temporarily with George and Margaret in Gettysburg before moving, in 1850, to Frederick Street in Hanover, next to the home of Emma’s father.  Despite living in Hanover, John served as the Director of Gettysburg National Bank from 1852 through 1857 (his father’s post undoubtedly contributing to his appointment there). 

Tragedy struck the young family in 1860 when their daughter, Emma (named after her mother) passed away at the age of two, just days after John’s thirty-third birthday. With John and his wife undoubtedly still reeling from their grief, George and Margaret persuaded the couple to move to Gettysburg in 1861, shortly after the Civil War broke out.  The two generations of Swopes lived side-by-side, as George had turned his home into a duplex in 1860 by adding on a two-story brick house that adjoined the western wall of his own home.  He gave the new half of the home to John as a reward for his graduation from medical school. (Interestingly, the duplex abutted the home of another of Gettysburg’s wealthiest families, the Codoris, who owned both a home in town and an ever-sprawling farm along the Emmitsburg Road).  Despite living in Gettysburg, John maintained his practice in Hanover for two more years, only moving his office to Gettysburg after the battle. 

Despite the death of his young daughter, between his excellent education, the initial success of his medical practice, and his growing family, John had likely felt prepared for a comfortable life of wealth and influence in Gettysburg.  However, tragedy struck again in 1862 when John’s wife, passed away, leaving him with three children to raise on his own.  While he would have certainly been devastated by this tragedy, John still had his parents living next door and the servants who stayed with him who could provide assistance in rearing the children, helping to ease the loss in at least a small way.  A year later however, the war would come literally to his doorstep, and John would again face tragedy, this time through the widespread carnage that destroyed so many of his neighbors’ livelihoods. 

A month before the two armies would collide in his home town, John registered for the draft.  The newly passed Enrollment Act of 1863 had required him to do so, as he fit the age requirement of being between 20 and 45 years old (he was 35 years old at his registration).  Perhaps the grieving Swope comforted himself with the thought that, if he were to be drafted, at least his service on the front lines might serve as both a physical and mental escape from the melancholies and recent tragedies that had befallen his household.  Additionally, if drafted, John could provide his medical services to the soldiers in blue. Quite noticeably, however, he did not go so far to enlist, perhaps due to his Democratic political leanings which would have been at odds with the current policies of the Lincoln administration.  John also likely hesitated to enlist because it would require him to leave behind his successful medical practice and his young children.  If he were killed in battle, he would leave them as orphans, likely dependent on his own aging parents for support. Even if he were not killed, the medical practice he had worked his whole life to proudly bring into fruition would have to be sacrificed, or at least temporarily abandoned, thus removing a key facet of Swope’s professional identity—and leaving needy patients in the community without their reliable caretaker .  Thankfully for at least one of the impending battle’s wounded, Swope was able to remain at home.

During the Battle of Gettysburg, John Swope likely hid in his basement with his family.   He probably stayed at home to protect the house, as both he and his father had a large investment put into the home.  For example, George’s half of the duplex alone was now worth $8,000 in 1860.  Even if John could not personally keep the battle away from his home, at least he could watch over the house and try to prevent expensive items from being stolen or destroyed.  He also sent a friend, Dr. J.W.C. O’Neal, to check on his parents’ farm outside of town.  O’Neal was related by marriage to John, as his wife also hailed from the Wirt family.  However, the mission turned out to be much more dangerous than expected, and O’Neal was captured by Brigadier General James Johnson Pettigrew’s Confederate soldiers and reportedly forced to tend to Confederate wounded during the battle.  As O’Neal was coerced into providing medical services for the Confederate army, his disappearance likely left John wondering about the fate of both his friend and the farm.  While luck kept him out of aiding the Confederates, he probably felt distressed and guilty for O’Neal vanishing.  If John had not sent him to check on the farm, he may have been sitting safe in his own basement.

On July 1st, the fighting raged around Swope’s home in town.  The Louisiana Tigers, and specifically Brigadier General Harry Hays’s Brigade of Brigadier General Jubal Early’s Division, pushed elements of the Union Eleventh Corps, commanded by Major General Oliver Howard, up North Stratton Street.  The street runs parallel alongside the eastern wall of George’s half of the house.  The most famous of the men killed during this struggle was likely Sergeant Amos Humiston, whose death prompted a national newspaper search for his family and famously led to the idea for the eventual creation of the National Homestead Orphanage for children of deceased soldiers in 1866.  He died clutching a stereograph of his young children—children not much older than John Swope’s.  Sgt. Humiston fought in bloody hand-to-hand combat in the streets, an unusual scenario for Civil War soldiers who were accustomed mostly to firing in distant lines across a field.  This disorienting and terrifying struggle took place just steps from where John spent his innocent and privileged childhood—the house where he now hid in the basement with his own children for safety.

The Swope home made it through the battle, although John Swope would file a claim with the state for destruction to his property committed by Brigadier General J.E.B. Stuart’s men, which likely occurred on July 3rd when they fought at East Cavalry Field.  In the claim, John likely referred to the small farm that he would ultimately inherit from George which was about two miles outside of town.  In 1879, he received $133.00 for his losses—a more sizable amount than many claimants.  The state of Pennsylvania only rarely compensated the claimants for losses caused by the Confederates.  It is possible that John received the $133.00, while many of his neighbors received nothing, because his family enjoyed so much power and influence in both Gettysburg and Adams County.  Three generations of the extended Swope family held the position of President of Gettysburg National Bank, with their control spanning more or less from 1824 until 1905.  Such influence, combined with their standing as the wealthiest family in the county in 1863, may have helped John’s cause while applying for a claim, despite the family needing that money far less than their middling and poor neighbors who received nothing. Due both to the enormous financial strains that the mere prosecution of the war effort had placed upon the state and federal government, combined with free-labor fears of creating a government-dependent lower class, few families would receive any payout from the state.  However, through their various lucrative enterprises in town, John Swope and his predecessors had established themselves as models of moral living and independent financial success, demonstrating both the good character and respectable work ethic of individuals who could be trusted and would likely not to become dependent on government handouts in the future, and whose continued leadership in the community was both needed and valued.

However, more immediately after the battle, Swope’s home became a field hospital.  On July 11th, Lieutenant William “Willie” Pohlman of the 59th New York was brought there to recover from wounds he received during the Pickett-Pettigrew assault on July 3rd.  Lieutenant Pohlman’s parents had worked as missionaries of the American Board of Foreign Missions to China and he had been born in Borneo during one of their trips.  After Pohlman’s mother passed away, his father had sent both him and his sister to Albany, New York to be raised by their aunt and uncle.  Pohlman’s father would die while making an ocean voyage.  Despite his determination to follow his parents’ path and also become a missionary, Pohlman enlisted in the 1st New Jersey Infantry after completing his freshman year at Rutgers University.

That decision would ultimately link his fortunes fatefully to the Swope family, as in January of 1863, Pohlman was promoted to lieutenant and transferred to the 59th New York in which he would serve as an adjutant during the Battle of Gettysburg.  Gettysburg would be Pohlman’s thirteenth battle of the war. During the Pickett-Pettigrew assault, Pohlman received two wounds.  First, a shell fragment hit his upper left arm.  He refused to go to the rear of the lines and instead told his comrades, “No, never while I have a sword arm left.”  He drew his saber with his right hand to continue fighting, only for that wrist to be hit by a bullet.  Pohlman again refused assistance from his men, who offered to escort him behind the Union lines to receive medical treatment; true to nineteenth-century sentimentalist views of battle, which held that even a single soldier had the power to change the course of battle if he fought courageously, Pohlman insisted that the men remain on the field, as he believed every man could make a difference in the fight.  Pohlman instead found his own way behind the Union lines to the field hospital he would stay at until July 11th, when he would be brought to the Swope house to continue his recovery.

Pohlman’s and John Swope’s fortunes may have collided on July 11th for two key reasons:  First, John Swope was a doctor who had been practicing for several years in Hanover by then.  He could have provided key medical services to Pohlman, and to countless numbers of other wounded men.  (According to Mary Pohlman,  (William’s sister), he was also nursed by Eliza W. Farnham, who treated him at the original field hospital and tracked him down after he was moved to the Swope house).  Additionally, Pohlman’s family was extremely wealthy, which meant he grew up in a similar socio-economic class as John Swope.  Therefore, it is possible that Pohlman (or his initial caretakers) may have heard about the Swope family and thought he would be able to recover more comfortably there.  After examining Pohlman, Swope called for an experienced surgeon from Baltimore (Swope usually avoided surgeries).  Then, in an effort to communicate Pohlman’s fate to his loved ones and provide comfort in the chaotic weeks following the battle, he began to exchange correspondence with Mary Pohlman.

As sometimes happened with wealthy families of officers, Mary eventually sent a carriage to Pennsylvania with the aim of retrieving her brother so that he could complete his recovery within the comforts of home, under the care of his loving family.  However, such was not to be his fate.  Lt. Pohlman seemed to be recovering well until July 20th, when his wounds suddenly began to hemorrhage and he became confused.  On July 21st, Pohlman passed away in Swope’s house, with the carriage sent by Mary to retrieve him still en route to Gettysburg.  Pohlman’s body was embalmed in Gettysburg (which John probably had ordered) before being returned home to Albany for burial.  John provided Polhman with the sentimentalist version of the “Good Death” that soldiers often imagined when enlisting.  Not only did he provide Pohlman with excellent medical care (even going so far as to call in a surgeon from out of state), but he also made sure Pohlman rested in as much comfort as could be provided in the situation.  John helped Pohlman to communicate his last wishes to Mary, which is an opportunity that most soldiers in the Civil War did not have.  After Pohlman’s death, John ensured the return of his body home to Albany for a full Christian burial. 

Despite John’s attempts to avoid the war (including his reluctance to enlist), the grim realities of war still found their way quite literally into his house alongside Pohlman, even after the battle raged in the streets around the home.  John may have seen tending to Pohlman as satisfying his patriotic duty to his country, as he tended one of its fallen heroes.  Even though he never enlisted, John could say that he contributed to the war effort, opening his home to a wounded Union officer.  While doing so, John certainly thought about the impact that bringing the reality of war into his home would have on his young daughters.  Even though he remembered a peaceful, innocent childhood in the Swope home, his daughters would grow up to have memories of hiding in fear for their lives in their own basement during the battle, as soldiers fought in the blood- soaked streets outside their doorstep. They would remember the once pristine, blood-soaked operating table and furniture surrounding Pohlman during his final days; they would have the memory of Pohlman’s desperate cries and struggles for life amidst his hemorrhage imprinted in their young minds forever.

Despite their grim memories of the battle, in the years following the Battle of Gettysburg, the Swope family remained prosperous, unlike many of their neighbors who struggled with significant financial losses after the battle.  John’s home had survived the battle relatively unharmed, and he would eventually receive compensation for the damage it did face from his claim.  John Swope remarried sometime before 1870 to Blanche Mitchell.  They had three more daughters together who survived to adulthood.  His post-war fortunes helped him to bounce back from the personal tragedies that had defined his life on the eve of the war. He also benefited from never having to serve on the front lines during the war itself and thus avoiding being torn away from his family to fight, unlike so many others.  He may have paid a commutation fee to have someone else serve in his stead after registering for the draft, or perhaps John just benefited once again from luck and was never drafted.

Swope continued to use the post-battle years to become more actively engaged in the Gettysburg community and take advantage of numerous professional opportunities.  He moved his medical practice to Gettysburg shortly after the battle, likely helping to treat additional injured.  In 1879, he became the President of Gettysburg National Bank, following the death of his father, George, who had previously held the position.  Additionally, John donated $5,000.00 to St. James Lutheran Church (which the family were members of) in honor of his father to help fund the construction of the church’s new bell tower.  The church sat diagonally opposite the Swope House at the intersection of York and North Stratton Streets.  After the church completed the bell tower’s construction, the tolling of the bell could be heard on the Swope property every Sunday morning, reminding John, and everyone else within hearing distance, of George.  Having inherited George’s wealth and property, he also made significant renovations to the home to showcase his newfound wealth and thereby expand his own influence within the community.  In the last census before George’s death, his combined personal estate was valued at a whopping $157,000, and his real estate at $8,000.  To that end, he replaced the original eighteen-pane windows on the front of the house with four-pane windows (the larger sheets of glass were more expensive and a clear sign of “conspicuous consumption.”).  He also added bump-outs to the east side of the house where George had lived.  John finished his renovations by adding molding to the roofline in the front of the home, which served as a clear statement piece about his socio-economic position.

Gaining momentum from his new-found personal wealth and local prominence, in 1884, Swope ran, and was elected, to replace Democrat William A. Duncan in the United States House of Representatives.  Swope moved his family to Washington D.C., where they would remain through his death.  After finishing out Duncan’s term, Swope was elected for his own full term, thus solidifying the Swope family name in not only local, but also state and national political influence. However, Swope’s rapid rise within the political arena must have complicated his life within certain sectors of Gettysburg.   Many of the other prominent families in the borough were Republicans whose political views would have clashed dramatically with his own (especially during the war years and those immediately preceding and succeeding them). To hold dissenting views as merely fellow voters within a community was one thing; to suddenly represent the community through an official Democratic voice in Congress was another.  Nevertheless, it appears Swope’s personality and political savvy somehow enabled him to navigate these challenges remarkably smoothly, as his obituary noted that he had “filled the position with great credit to himself and his constituency.”  Indeed, Swope appears to have cultivated a reputation of personal honor similar to that which had gotten his father first elected as President of the Gettysburg Bank almost forty years prior.  Never one to forget his home town, no matter how great his political fortunes, while living in Washington D.C., John remained actively involved in the affairs of Gettysburg outside of the operations of the bank.  He also gave back to his original college in his hometown.  In 1882, he became the Vice President of the Board of Trustees of Pennsylvania College—a position he held until his death.

Despite his professional and financial successes, however, Swope suffered from poor health during the last two years of his life.  Battling through numerous illnesses, Swope eventually lost most of his eyesight.  He passed away in the morning on December 6, 1910, in Washington D.C., just shy of his eighty-third birthday.  His former neighbors in Hanover and Gettysburg received the news of his death through telegraph.  Swope was buried alongside his first wife, Emma in Evergreen Cemetery in Gettysburg on December 8, 1910.

Thanks to his family’s wealth and influence, John Swope enjoyed a largely privileged life which ultimately helped him launch a political career that extended the Swope family’s influence beyond Gettysburg to the national level.  His father, George, had followed the free labor dream, climbing the socio-economic ladder and setting John up for a life of success. However, no amount of familial hard work, top-notch education, and inherited wealth could, keep tragedy from John Swope’s front door, as he struggled through the premature death of loved ones and, despite his best attempts to escape the war, brought the bloody conflict into his own front parlor.  Undoubtedly changed forever by his all-too-personal encounters with death and suffering that the battle and his unexpected patient, Lt. Pohlman forced upon him, Swope nevertheless rallied in the wake of war to continue to serve the family, the community, and the nation that had nurtured him and his good fortunes since youth.