War Comes to Reverend Charles Philip Krauth's Door

Tom Elmore

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Charles Philip Krauth (1797-1867), an accomplished scholar and theologian of the Lutheran Church, served as the first president of Pennsylvania College (now Gettysburg College) from 1834-1850. At the time of the battle, he was a professor at the Lutheran Theological Seminary (which he had earlier helped to establish), and lived with his wife Harriet and their daughter in a two-story brick home on Seminary Ridge, just 170 yards north of the seminary. The family had no sooner finished breakfast when the battle opened on July 1, compelling them to take refuge in the cellar. Their home quickly filled up with wounded from the Union First Corps. Officers were sent upstairs, while enlisted men occupied the ground floor, under care of a surgeon named Bache - likely Thomas Huston Bache, Medical Director of the First Corps.

About 3 p.m., three guns (the fourth was previously disabled) of Capt. J. H. Cooper’s Battery B, 1st Pennsylvania took up a position just yards in front (west) of the house. A half hour later, remnants of the Federal defenders in front fell back and rallied between and around the guns, at this point mainly consisting of soldiers from the Iron Brigade. Twenty minutes or so afterwards, the three guns were blasting away at oncoming North Carolinians in the brigade of Brig. Gen. Alfred M. Scales. Only a few more minutes elapsed before the Federals were compelled to retreat through town, and the fighting gradually subsided. Moving up behind them were the battered Confederates, with the 34th North Carolina possibly positioned alongside the house. A few minutes later General Robert E. Lee rode up to the ridge nearby. As relative calm returned, Rev. Dr. Krauth emerged with his family, only to find their house packed full with Federal wounded. They had to seek temporary shelter elsewhere for the night – perhaps in the Seminary building. Early the next morning they passed through Confederate lines to Jacob Hankey’s place on the Mummasburg Road, and ate their first meal in 24 hours. Here they joined a couple of dozen other displaced local citizens. The Krauth family returned to an empty home on July 6, but they found the floors and other possessions stained with blood. Fortunately their home reportedly had not been badly ransacked, although some items were missing, including a prized four-piece silver set. However, the latter was returned later by the mayor of Waynesboro, who had obtained it from a conscientious Confederate officer. Slightly scratched during its journey, it now resides at the Adams County Historical Society.

(Scales’ men departed after dark on July 1, and the next morning, Brig. Gen. Junius Daniel’s brigade filled the gap, with the 43rd North Carolina being drawn up near the house for the rest of the day. George Doles’ Georgians would occupy the grounds on July 4.)

sources: Greg Coco, A Vast Sea of Misery
http://www.seminaryridge.org/legacy.htm
https://www.lutheranhistoricalsociety.com/charles-philip-krauth/
http://www.montgomery.pa-roots.com/Biographies/CharlesPhilipKrauth.html
 
Thank you for the article and links @Tom Elmore. The Lutheran Theological Seminary and the families affected by the Gettysburg Day One battle is a favourite topic of mine. Here is an article that I have about Ziegler family (caretakers of the Seminary) and what they dealt with.

The Ziegler Family

In just a few months, the Ziegler family went from living in a seminary to living in hell.

In 1826, the Lutheran Church established its first seminary in America. There were several possible locations for a seminary; however, Gettysburg provided a central location among the synods within the General Synod. Additionally, the town offered $7,000 toward the costs of construction, a building to use while the seminary was constructed, and an excellent system off roads.

The Adams County Academy on the southeast corner of Washington and High Streets served as the first home to the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg. And shortly thereafter, the Seminary purchased land on Oak Ridge, located on the west side of Gettysburg, for the location of its permanent home. Construction of this new Seminary building began on May 26, 1831, and was finished in 1832.

As with other local communities, Adams County felt the impact of the Civil War through enlistment of young men on both sides of the conflict. Gettysburg would feel the impact of the war physically and the Lutheran Theological Seminary on Oak Ridge would not be spared. On July 1, 1863, the war came directly into the dorm when the Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac clashed on the western edge of Gettysburg. Oak Ridge, known afterward as Seminary Ridge, was the scene of the climax of the days fighting.

The fighting had begun early that morning and not long after the shooting began, Dr. George New, a Union surgeon in the First division of the First Corps of the Army of the Potomac, designated Old Dorm for use as a hospital. The building quickly became an active hospital. The students and faculty had left the building prior to the battle.

The building steward, Emanuel Ziegler, who was home from the army on a furlough, and his family remained. The Zieglers left with the retreating Union army as the Federal defenses on the ridge collapsed late in the afternoon of July 1. By that evening, Confederate forces had taken the ridge and the town. The Old Dorm was in Confederate hands.

When the Confederates retreated into Virginia, the scene at the seminary was gruesome. Lydia Ziegler, daughter of the building steward, Emanuel Ziegler, remarked upon the family's return to the seminary, "Oh, what a home-coming! Everything we owned was gone and the rest had been converted to hospital purposes." However, the Zieglers did find two of their "beautiful white cows" in fine condition. More Here: http://pacivilwar150.com/ThroughPeople/Children/TheZieglerFamily.html
 
Surgeon George W. New, attached to the 7th Indiana, was surgeon-in-chief of the First Division, First Corps. He afterwards established himself at the (German Reformed) White Church on the Baltimore Pike.
 
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