Hanover Junction Attacked

Hanover Junction Attacked. “The Confederates are here.”. , On June 27, 1863, the air here was filled with anxiety. Confederates from Gen. Robert E. Lee’s army were swarming over the Pennsylvania countryside, seizing goods and horses, cutting telegraph lines, burning bridges, and destroying the railroad. This spot, where the Hanover Branch Railroad and the critical Northern Central Railway converged, was a prime target., The telegraph from nearby Hanover went ominously silent at 12:30 p.m. – after messaging the “The Confederates are here.” Around 2 p.m., Confederate Gen. (sic) Elijah White and his “Comanches” (the 35th Virginia Cavalry Battalion) appeared on the horizon in front of you. “We could see men galloping their horses along the highway, over the creek and Rail Road,” wrote 12-year old Harry Gladfelter. Two locomotives barely escaped, roaring out of the station under fire., 200 members of the 20th Volunteer Militia regiment, assigned to defend the junction, had constructed light fortifications on the hill to you right. Hearing the Confederates approach, they formed a skirmish line in front of the depot. But when White’s 125 screaming, shouting, pistol-firing raiders came into view, the skirmishers resolve evaporated, and they quickly scrambled up the hill., Black smoke billowed into the air as the raiders commenced their work of destruction, burning the adjacent bridge, the railroad turntable, and railroad cars. Squads burnt other bridges and cut telegraph wires further along the tracks. The telegraph office inside the station was ransacked, but not before 16-year-old apprentice telegrapher John Sheared tapped out a final message., Late in the afternoon, the “Comanches” saddled up and continued north – some towards the Howard Tunnel.