Lee Waiting For Robert E. Lee: As The Confederate Army Neared, Middletown Prepared For A Fight

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WAITING FOR ROBERT E. LEE: As the Confederate army neared, Middletown prepared for a fight

Published Date Tuesday, 02 July 2013 18:53
Written by Daniel Walmer
Page 1 of 2
It’s late June 1863. The American Civil War has been raging for nearly two years now, with no end in sight.

You knew the fight would be fierce and bloody, but until the Confederate army began making its way up the Cumberland Valley you never dreamed it would come here – to your doorstep.

What do you do when you realize an invading force is on its way, and your town’s healthiest men are away from home, fighting with the Union army? Do you flee? Are you paralyzed by inaction?


Not if you’re R. I. Young, a Middletown resident who recorded his memories of those sobering days in his diary. He serves as a reminder that, although Gettysburg usually gets the limelight, the Confederate invasion of Pennsylvania that took place 150 years ago this summer was broader and grander in scope, triggering both fear and action among residents as far north as Dauphin County.

Expired Image RemovedPhoto by Frankie Wiseman- Civil War re-enactors perform in Middletown for the Middletown and Hummelstown Railroad’s “Civil War Remembered” special event train.​
Young went to Harrisburg to offer his services in fighting back the invasion on June 24, 1863, only to be turned away. But on June 27, he got his chance: The Middletown Home Guard was forming.

“In the evening their [sic] was a meeting in the square for the purpos [sic] of starting a company,” he wrote in his diary, as recorded in Michael Barton’s “An Illustrated History of Greater Harrisburg.’’

For the rest: http://www.pressandjournal.com/news...e-army-neared-middletown-prepared-for-a-fight
 
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