Sporting Hill

Sporting Hill. Sunday, June 28, 1863. Spearheading the Confederate advance on Harrisburg, Confederate General Albert G. Jenkins captured Mechanicsburg on the morning of Sunday, June 28, 1863. From there, Jenkins split his 1,200 man cavalry force, sending some 300-400 northward via the Hodgestown Road to the Carlisle Pike. At the request of his fearful fellow citizens of Hodgestown, Jacob Otstat destroyed 45 gallons of brandy so that the incoming invaders could not indulge themselves., From Hodgestown, this band of Confederates, led by Lt. Col. Vincent A. Witcher, continued east on the Carlisle Pike until he reached a commanding ridge which was the home to the former Salem Church. The church, located on the 6200 block of Carlisle Pike, is the final resting place for numerous Civil War veterans and features many unique gravestones. From there he eyed Union General Joseph Knipe’s force of two New York infantry regiments (the 8th and 71st New York State National Guard) and a Philadelphia artillery unit a little more than a mile and a half away, near the Samuel Eberly barn at present-day 5100 block of Carlisle Pike. Witcher deployed two Confederate cannons at the church, and the two sides engaged in artillery fire around noon. According to a Confederate lieutenant, General Jenkins rode north to the church from Mechanicsburg to the church where he surveyed the action from atop his horse., After about half an hour, Knipe left his advanced position and headed back towards Oyster’s Point (present day Camp Hill) and the safety of the Union lines. The New Yorkers reported an orderly withdrawal; a local, however, less politely recounted: “They [Knipe’s men] were fired on by rebel pickets or imagined they were, when they took to their heels dropping blankets, knapsacks, canteens, guns and haversacks never looking back till within the fort.” The truth may lie somewhere in between. The New Yorkers fell back to about the present-day 3100 block of Market Street in Camp Hill, at a road junction then popularly known as Oyster’s Point. Witcher’s Confederates continued their probe towards Harrisburg, and cautiously pursued the New Yorkers eastward on the Carlisle Pike, until setting up camp in the vicinity of the 4700 block of Carlisle Pike, on the high ground above Orr’s Bridge.