Please join us for a Chambersburg Civil War Seminars & Tours Lecture Series! Our next lecture will be: The Confederate Approach on Harrisburg: The Gettysburg Campaign's Northernmost Reaches by Cooper Wingert. Cost is $5 per person. Zoom Login details will be sent with your email registration confirmation.

Talk Synopsis:

In June 1863, Harrisburg braced for an invasion as the Confederate troops of Lieutenant General Richard S. Ewell steadily moved toward the Pennsylvania capital. Capturing Carlisle en route, Ewell sent forth a brigade of cavalry under Brigadier General Albert Gallatin Jenkins. After occupying Mechanicsburg for two days, Jenkins's troops skirmished with Union militia near Harrisburg. Jenkins then reported back to Ewell that Harrisburg was vulnerable. Ewell, however, received orders from army commander Lee to concentrate southward--toward Gettysburg--immediately. Left in front of Harrisburg, Jenkins had to fight his way out at the Battle of Sporting Hill. The following day, Jeb Stuart's Confederate cavalry made its way to Carlisle and began the infamous shelling of its Union defenders and civilian population. Running out of ammunition and finally making contact with Lee, Stuart also retired south toward Gettysburg. In this presentation, historian Cooper Wingert will trace the Confederates to the gates of Harrisburg in these northernmost actions of the Gettysburg Campaign.

Biography:

Cooper Wingert writes about the U.S. Civil War, slavery and emancipation. The author of 12 books and numerous articles, his book The Confederate Approach on Harrisburg (Arcadia, 2012) received the Dr. James I. Robertson, Jr. Literary Prize for the best work in the field of Confederate history--military, political and social. He is also the recipient of the University of Queensland’s Thomas Morrow Prize in the field of Australian history. Wingert graduated summa cum laude from Dickinson College (2020), and is currently taking his PhD in History at Georgetown University.