Harrisburg and the Civil War: Defending the Keystone of the Union

Answering Lincoln’s call for volunteers, men swarmed into the Pennsylvania capital to fight for the Union. The cityscape was transformed as soldiers camped on the lawn of the capitol, schools and churches were turned into hospitals and the local fairgrounds became the training facility of Camp Curtin. For four years, Harrisburg and its railroad hub served as a continuous facilitation site for thousands of Northern soldiers on their way to the front lines. This vital role to the Union war efforts twice placed the capital in the sights of the Confederates–most famously during the Gettysburg Campaign when Southern forces neared the city’s outskirts. Though civilians kept an anxious eye to the opposite bank of the Susquehanna River, Harrisburg’s defenses were never breached. Author Cooper H. Wingert crafts a portrait of a capital at war, from the political climate to the interactions among the citizens and the troops.