THE CAPITOL GROUNDS AT HARRISBURG TURNED INTO A CAMP

The following images and article appeared in the October 4, 1862 edition of Harper’s Weekly.  The images show Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in late September 1862.  Governor Curtain and citizens of the area were scared because they heard of the Battle of Antietam near the Pennsylvania border. The battle was one of the major turning points of the Civil War because it repelled a Confederate invasion, where General Robert E. Lee had hoped to win a major victory, and it gave President Abraham Lincoln a suitable military pretext for issuing the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. 

MR. THEODORE R. DAVIS sends us a couple of sketches from Harrisburg, which we reproduce on this page. They explain themselves. In the memory of the oldest inhabitant Harrisburg has never known such an excitement as the one which it has lately experienced. In the language of every visitor, words fail to describe the martial enthusiasm of the Pennsylvanians, or the almost countless throngs of soldiers who have filed through the State capital to take part in the defense of their State against the invader. Governor Curtin reports 75,000 Pennsylvanians under arms.

A Times correspondent says:

Recruits are constantly arriving here. From early dawn yesterday until quite late at night, every train was bringing in its patriotic freight, until we now have troops from every county in the State. Camp Curtin is crowded to overflowing; the beautiful grounds of the Capitol is one vast encampment covered with tents; the Senate and House of Representatives turned into a barracks, as well as every other room in the Capitol not immediately required for executive purposes; the Court-house is also appropriated to the soldiers, and, indeed, every available place has been seized upon as a war “depot;” the private houses, in the mean time, opening their doors to and lavishing their hospitality upon all the brave boys who choose to partake.

There are individual companies already here from Pittsburg and other places, each of which represents a business capital of some millions of dollars. Judges, preachers, physicians, merchants, lawyers, artists, and men of every other profession, are found side by side with the brawny and honest sons of physical labor, shouldering the musket. Here is to be seen a learned Judge in the ranks, commanded by one of his own peers—there a Preacher-Captain, instructing his flock how to do battle; and there again, some merchant or boss-mechanic, led on by one who was but yesterday their poor clerk or dependent. It is romance and poetry of the highest order, simmered down to the vulgar level of everyday life.

There is so much to see and explore in these images.  From the dresses on the ladies to the soldier tents in front of the capitol building.  Using images like these are great ways to engage kids in doing history.  Don’t give them the answers to what you see, let them write about what they see in the images and then have a discussion.