Building a Battle Site: Roads to and through Gettysburg

On the morning of 1 July 1863, lead elements of Confederate General Robert E. Lee\u27s Army of Northern Virginia advanced on the town of Gettysburg situated in the lush farm lands of south-central Pennsylvania just eight miles east of the South Mountain in Adams county. The Southern reconnaissance in force made early that summer morning was destined not only to change the history of the struggling Confederacy, but also to set the infant United States republic, indeed the world, on courses towards more democratic forms of government. Although many historians have dwelled on those three fateful days in 1863, few emphasize the role the major roads played in the drama that unfolded at Gettysburg. However, events that transpired over a 116- year period prior to the great battle actually created the highway system that was to draw the opposing forces to town-a hub of ten major roads. This essay will briefly explore the development of state- and county ordained roads to and through the site of Gettysburg from 1747 until the year of the battle. After a brief history of the colonial development in the greater Adams county area, emphasis will be placed on the evolution of the ten major roads that join at Gettysburg and how the development of the town affected their positioning and that of some ancillary roads within the borough limits. [excerpt

On the Trail of Sidney O\u27Brien: An Inquiry into Her Family and Status - Was She a Slave or Servant of the Gettys Family in Gettysburg? Was Her Daughter, Getty Ann, a Descendant of James Gettys?

Like many Decembers in the greater Adams county area, the beginning of the winter usually is a collage of intermittent warm spells spliced amongst Arctic days with cold Canadian northwest winds. Amid the hoopla, as Gettysburgians prepared for the 1873 Christmas holidays during the week between the 17th and 24th of December, a person had, as Alfred Lord Tennyson so eloquently described, Crossed the Bar. But in the local newspapers there had been no notice of declining health. No death notice appeared. Possibly the cost of five cents a line for all over four lines- cash to accompany the notice was too much for the family. Or did not the publishers of Gettysburg\u27s two newspapers consider the passing of another Black-American as newsworthy for their readership? The only printed evidence of the passing of a grand dame of Gettysburg, a human link dating back to the very founding of the town, was a short legal notice regarding the filing of Letters Testamentary printed directly below the death notices in the 24 December Star and Sentinel. Sidney O\u27Brien had died. [excerpt

Anatomy of a Log House in Adams County, Pennsylvania and Its Unspoken Language

Sixteen years after the end of the Revolution, and on the eve of the formation of Adams county, the United States became embroiled in a quasi-war with France (1797-1801) which strained the federal treasury. As a result of the diplomatic disagreement, Congress approved several bills to fund America\u27s military build-up. One of these, the U.S. Evaluation Tax of July 9, 1798, was signed into law to raise two million dollars in revenues. The direct or window tax was levied based on landholdings, buildings and the number of glass lights, and slaves-in essence, a federal property tax. Although the window tax was considered a burden by most contemporaries, it was a blessing for modern cultural scientists. Fulfilling their duty by compiling at least five schedules for each township, the assessors described each major structure on nearly every farmstead and in every village and town in York county, noting building dimensions, number of stories, number of windows and lights, and construction materials. Although some schedules have not survived, the remainder graphically illustrate that most of the dwelling houses in Adams county by the summer of 1798 were made of wood. [excerpt

William and Isabel: Parallels Between the Life and Times of the William Bliss Family, Transplanted New Englanders at Gettysburg, and a Nineteenth-Century Novel, \u27Isabel Carollton: A Personal Retrospect\u27 by Kneller Glen

By 3 July 1863, Union troops under the command of General George G. Meade and elements of General Robert E. Lee\u27s Confederate army had struggled for two days over the rolling farm lands, ridges, and rocky crags around a small farming community and county seat known as Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Within the encompassing whirlpool ofbattle, however, smaller dramas had unfolded, and one of them is of interest to us here. The soldiers had been fighting for the possession of a house and barn situated equidistant between the battle lines about one and onequarter miles south-southwest of the town square. During a thirty-one hour period, the farmstead had changed hands ten times, but by midmorning of the third day, Federal troops along Cemetery Ridge could no longer tolerate the harassing sharpshooters\u27 fire originating from the barn. After men of the 14th Connecticut Regiment recaptured the farmstead, a courier was sent out to the besieged Nutmeggers with orders to torch the buildings and withdraw. Shortly before the noon, the farmstead was engulfed in flames. Later, a two-hour cannonade was followed by a massed Confederate infantry assault on the Union center, the famous Pickett\u27s Charge. Men in butternut-and-grey again traversed the same farmstead, but by that time the earlier actions there had become anticlimactic. By 5 July the armies had withdrawn, but they had left behind a devastated landscape. However, more was destroyed the morning of the third than a refuge for the skirmishers and sharpshooters: a secure family setting and livelihood were also consumed in the fires. The lives of the farmer, William Bliss, his wife Adeline, and their daughters Sarah and Frances had been immeasurably altered. But there is one major difference between the Bliss\u27s situation and that of other noncombatants: during Lee\u27s Gettysburg campaign, William and his family were the only civilians to lose everything except the clothes on their backs and that which was most dear to them-their lives. [excerpt

Raising Kane Takes Its Toll on the Old Chambersburg Turnpike : A Tale of Photographic Detection

Inquires to which the staff of the society responds fall into several categories, but all can be characterized as sensible, ludicrous, or somewhere in between. Most sensible requests focus on genealogy, old businesses, or some other facet of early Adams county history. Many other times, ludicrous requests are received from parties who want to know something about their ancestors from some foreign state who fought in the battle of Gettysburg. The society simply does not have that information. At face value, however, some requests only border on the ludicrous. Such was one relatively recent inquiry which the author was asked to answer. In early September 1996, the society received a letter from a collector of Gettysburg memorabilia. Enclosed were two photographs which the collector indicated were identified as Toll Gate, Gettysburg, Pa. 1907. [excerpt

Pros and cons of a framework for evaluating potential pain in decapods

The rigorous framework for research into potential pain in decapods was successful in allowing legislators in the United Kingdom to evaluate a complex scientific issue. However, it might produce problems for research. I discuss doubts about the usefulness of the eight criteria. Some have yet to receive any investigation and others do not allow much inference about pain. In addition, some existing studies are not covered in the framework. Most worrying, however, is the potential for stifling future research of novel areas that are excluded from the framework

Do arthropods respond to noxious stimuli purely by reflex?

Mikhalevich & Powell (2020) argue that it is wrong to dismiss the idea of sentience in invertebrates. Here, I expand on the evidence for crustaceans responding to noxious stimuli in ways that are not explained by mere reflexes, and that are consistent with pain. I consider the idea that male praying mantids must not feel pain because they may continue to mate whilst being consumed by the female. I finish with thoughts about the idea that because robots may be constructed to act as if they experience pain, the argument that animals might experience pain is diminished

Might insects experience pain?

The aim of this commentary is to expand the discussion about subjective experience to other arthropods, notably crustaceans. Various species of crustaceans show responses consistent with their feeling pain. Hermit crabs also show prolonged investigation of new shells. They clearly attend to and integrate information from a wide variety of sources that enable them to evaluate the quality of the new shell relative to their current shell. These observations too are consistent with their having subjective experience

Assessing negative and positive evidence for animal pain

Jonathan Birch suggests that we should take one well-conducted study that produces results consistent with the idea of pain as being sufficient to invoke the animal sentience precautionary principle. Here, I consider how to balance negative and positive results from such studies using examples from my own work. I also consider which criteria of pain might provide strong inference about pain and which may prove to be weaker

Not only for... Material Progress... but for the General Good and Uplift : A History of Guernsey and Its Humpback Bridge

The Guernsey or Humpback Bridge (see figure 2) is dying from neglect. Small saplings and briar bushes now cuddle its abutments that Mother Nature has bombarded with many wind and rain showers and baked with her sweltering summer suns. Several timbers are tattooed, seared by countless embers from wood- and coal-fired locomotives that have traveled underneath it along the Gettysburg Railroad line. Sections of several other timbers have rotted. Indeed, this little, single-lane span cannot withstand the weight of motor vehicles much longer. For this reason, in 1999 the Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission ruled that the forlorn bridge was a safety hazard, closing it to the public and earmarking it for demolition. The Guernsey bridge\u27s future looked bleak. No government, business entity, or private citizen wanted to claim the bridge. Located next to the intersection of West Guernsey and Guernsey Roads, situated some two miles northeast of Biglerville, in Butler township, Adams county, the Humpback Bridge was neither maintained by the Adams county commissioners nor the Butler township supervisors. The Gettysburg Railroad, which had been sold several times over the past several decades, had no record of it. Thus the PUC had intervened. The Guernsey bridge, however, had not been completely forgotten. A grass-roots group, Friends of the Guernsey Bridge, was organized to prevent the bridge\u27s destruction. But when the group sought to acquire it in order to preserve it, it encountered a stumbling block: the identity of the bridge\u27s owner. Who is the present owner of the Humpback Bridge? [excerpt