Civil War cannon & carriage behind stone wall against darkening blue skies with white clouds.
Little known Civil War bombardment of Carlisle being commemorated Saturday
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Scott LaMar
Civil War cannon & carriage behind stone wall against darkening blue skies with white clouds.
Airdate: June 9, 2023
The Union victory at the Battle of Gettysburg in July, 1863 is considered the turning point of the Civil War. One of the factors pointed to in the Confederate loss was General Robert E. Lee didn’t have as much intelligence as he needed because his Calvary – led by General Jeb Stuart was riding around Carlisle leading up to and on the first day of the battle.
That’s when most historians mention Carlisle, but Carlisle has a Civil War history of its own.
Since Carlisle wasn’t being defended by Union troops at the time, the town council met with the Confederates and said the Confederates could enter Carlisle peaceably. The Confederates demanded supplies in return though.
Chris Jones, who is chairing the re-enactment for Historic Carlisle, described what happened when the people of Carlisle couldn’t meet the Rebels demands on Friday’s The Spark,”Confederate search parties went basically block to block. And there is even some accounts that some of the citizens who lived in Carlisle who would have been at that time called Copperheads, which meant they had some Southern sympathies, had actually piloted the search parties to houses that were known to have great stores of food that they hadn’t given up. So even though the Confederates there was no real harm done, they did leave the town in a pretty bad way as far as foodstuffs and supplies. They cleaned out any hardware stores, basically took what they please, but of course they did pay for it in Confederate currency.” (Which was worthless in the North).
But the peace didn’t continue though when Union troops showed up in Carlisle as Jones explained,”On July 1st, that afternoon, Union troops under the command of William Ferrer Smith, come from the defenses of Harrisburg. They enter the town of Carlisle, and the citizens are absolutely thrilled, so much so that they have an impromptu picnic on the square that afternoon. The soldiers have stacked their arms, they’ve taken off their accouterments, they’ve let their guard down. And that evening, out of nowhere comes three cannon shots screaming over Carlisle.”
More than 130 shells went into Carlisle but there wasn’t much damage. Some of the remnants of the shelling can still be seen in Carlisle today.
Saturday, Carlisle will commemorate the shelling with events most of the day, according to Jones,”There will be guest speakers. There are some noted authors and historians going to be here. We’ll have demonstrations by artillery and medical and infantry. There is a kid’s enlistment and drill. They’ll actually be taught how to handle, albeit a toy rifle like a soldier taught some of the marching maneuvers. A good way to get that younger generation interested in history. Then, of course, at 3:00 is the commencement of the reenactment, which will be held in the middle of the town square in Carlisle, where a lot of this action took place 160 years ago.”
