The Heat of the War Bring Young And Old to Fight for Pennsylvania

The summer 1863 was a hot one — not only in terms of temperature and humidity — but the Civil War was raging on and the southern Confederates were determined to repeat in Pennsylvania the destruction carried out elsewhere.

The men in Blair and Bedford counties were hesitant, for a variety of reasons, to take up arms and head to the trenches built at mountain passes in Morrisons Cove to keep the rebels at bay.

The call went out by Pennsylvania leaders for state militia volunteers, but very few volunteers responded, according to one Civil War expert Cloyd Neely, a Duncansville man who personally knew a number of Civil War veterans.

In the first quarter of the past century, Neely knew at least five veterans living in Duncansville, old men who liked sharing their experiences with a young, impressionable boy.

“Our family was a close neighbors with four of these veterans,” Neely wrote in Morrisons Cove Volunteer Militia. “They loved to tell stories of their war experiences, and I was a spell-bound listener to those war stories.”

Desperate for fighters living in this area the federal war department changed policy allowing volunteers to turn out for the duration of the emergency only and they did not have to be mustered into the federal armed forces.

This decision was a game-changer.

“They came by the thousands, but they were not soldiers. They were old men and boys. Too young or too old to be in the army,” Neely wrote.

Some volunteers were as young as 15. They were farmers, shopkeepers, clerks or men who were rejected by the army for recruitment.

In some cases so many men left to fight and segments of society came to a halt, case in point a Blair County newspaper with the editor of the Altoona Tribune.

“‘The absence of the entire force of printers with one exception, the editor, a elderly man, rendered it impossible for us to issue a paper within the last three weeks,’” Neely wrote, quoting the editor.

“Our hands responded to the call of the military ranks, so, we feel sure our subscribers will forgive us,” according to the unnamed editor.

This army of Minute Men had no federal status, no pay and no food or arms supply, yet they turned out to drill and lie in anxious wait at entrenchments outside Loysburg, atop Snake Spring mountain and in the McKee area.

General Albert Jenkins leading the Confederate cavalry, on June 15, 1863, lead the advance of General Robert E. Lee’s forces into Pennsylvania and were occupying Chambersburg.

Here Jenkins ravaged the area confiscating horses, cattle and other supplies while destroying railroads, bridges and demanding cash from town officials.

The southern threat to Hollidaysburg and Altoona was escalating with locals realizing they may soon be in a battle for more than cattle and horses but for their lives.