However, for many whites living in the area, the outbreak of war in 1861 wrought often irreparably destructive damage upon families who found their homes torn apart by fathers, sons, and cousins with conflicting political loyalties. For black Gettysburgians, life along the Mason-Dixon line created a tenuous and often terrifying existence between freedom and slavery. This new blog series profiles the lives of diverse Gettysburgians who were forced to confront the war at their very doorsteps, each on their own terms, whose stories speak to the kaleidoscope of experiences of civilians struggling to survive, and thrive, along the Pennsylvania-Maryland border during the Civil War.įor many 19 th-century Gettysburgians, life on the Pennsylvania-Maryland border meant a nearly continuous interchange between northern and southern goods, civilians, and cultural values.
However, these civilians’ experiences were not monolithic while some were defined by tragedy and blight, others included remarkable episodes of perseverance, successful pragmatism, and creative profiteering. Nevertheless, none of these events could prepare Gettysburgians for the ferocious 3-day fight between 165,000 soldiers in early July of that year that would transform the lives and lands of Gettysburg’s civilians forever. Living just ten miles from the Mason-Dixon line, small-scale raids, kidnappings of freed-people, and rumors of an imminent clash between the two great armies had long plagued the borough and its surrounding community. War on the Doorstep: Civilians of Gettysburgīy late June of 1863, alarms warning of approaching Confederate forces were nothing new for the 2,400 residents of Gettysburg.
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