Author: Gordon Laws
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Discovering the History of Benner’s Hill in Gettysburg
Today, Benner’s Hill does not have the same public resonance as Big Round Top and Little Round Top. Nor does it mix commerce and memory as Cemetery Hill does. And it does not feature in the auto tour like those three and the famous Culp’s Hill. Yet, Benner’s hill played an important role in the…
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Confederate Burials on the George Rose Farm
John and George Rose estimated that between five hundred and one thousand men were buried on their property. The number may well have been higher—the property saw twenty thousand men engage and create six thousand casualties.
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Farmer, Tailor, Soldier, Poet: The Life of James A. Wade, Half-Brother of Jennie Wade
The life of James A. Wade started as a crime. It continued into the worst poverty—time in the Adams County Almshouse and a period of being bonded out. Then it pivoted to the Civil War, which was made worse by the death of his sister, Jennie Wade. And for all that, Jim, as he was…
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The Struggles of John Slyder in Civil War Gettysburg
For John Slyder and his family, the years 1862 and 1863 opened with tragedy and ended in disaster. In 1862 alone, John and Catherine Slyder saw two young grandchildren, ages 2 and 4, die. Further, their daughter-in-law (wife of William), Rebecca Shriver, died two weeks after the birth of her last child. This, of course,…
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The Big History of Big Round Top and Little Round Top
Prior to the Civil War, the twin hills south of Gettysburg were not known by the familiar names “Big Round Top” and “Little Round Top.” The taller, southern hill (today “Big Round Top”) was generally called “Round Top” or “Round Top Mountain” by locals, and sometimes simply “Round Hill,” reflecting its prominent rounded shape. The…
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Till Mellinger: The Missing Woman in the Chambersburg Brothel Shooting
The story of Frank McLaughlin and Till Mellinger echoes other sexually charged crimes of the era, and like those crimes, it has a huge hole in the plot—who was the woman? And like Captain Wade’s former victim, we know almost nothing about the woman in the Kobler house case. In June 1859, Matilda “Till” Mellinger…
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Frank McLaughlin: From Youthful Indiscretion to Battlefield Sacrifice
The first shooting of Frank McLaughlin could not have been more pointless. In 1859, various local newspapers in Chambersburg and Gettysburg broke a salacious story: a plasterer from Gettysburg had been shot in the neck near a house of “bad repute” in Chambersburg. The wound was grave, and writers believed the man would die, though…
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The Legacy of Dr. John O’Neal in Gettysburg’s History
Dr. John O’Neal had many occasions to visit the John Rose family shortly after the battle—he treated their daughter for a nervous condition and he became one of the best sources about Confederate burials in the town and surrounding farms. History mostly remembers him for his work reuniting Southern families with the remains of their…
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The Story of the George Rose Farm and Its Legacy
Scores of accounts about the Rose farm lead off with something like “at the farm of George Rose . . .” What most don’t realize is that George Rose was not only not living at the farm, he wouldn’t do so until at least 1868. So who was actually there, and how were they affected?…
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The Cane of John Yarbrough
The following is a piece of fiction inspired by the previous post on the cane of John Yarbrough and the farm of Abraham Plank. (Recall, too, that Abraham Plank is the uncle of John Edward Plank whose farm saw a large number of Confederate burials.) Yarbrough genealogy is very well researched, but details around Private…